


Seheron

by bad_decisions



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Canon Trans Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Cissexism, Cunnilingus, Depression, Dom/sub, Dysphoria, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Enemies, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Consent, Face-Fucking, Feelings, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Internalised Transphobia, Kinda, M/M, Massage, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Pining, Opposing Sides, Orgasm Denial, Praise Kink, Qun-Loyal Iron Bull, Rating for later chapters, Teasing, Touch-Starved, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, because that's hot, blood cw, clitoral stimulation, depressed character, first important kiss, iron bull as hissrad, legs over bull's horns for oral, pre-game, slight AU, sorta - Freeform, that's really hot, there will be fucking i promise, we finally get to the reason for the rating praise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:21:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6269479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bad_decisions/pseuds/bad_decisions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cremisius Aclassi joined the army to escape his betrothal, after his father was forced into slavery to save the family. Not because he liked the bastards, or anything they did. He was running from, not to, as it were.</p><p>So when he was assigned to Seheron after training, he breathed a sigh of relief. Fighting the Qun sounded like something he could do without feeling too guilty. Wasn't like the horn-heads mattered to him any.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 0

He survived the bloodbath at the beaches, to his own surprise. Half his unit had been cut down by Qunari axes; new recruits, so their ship's captain had laughed on the way over, were meat for the sausage grinder every autumn.

Cremisius Aclassi felt rather like a sausage, running through the jungle in formation with the rest of his battalion. Seheron was hot and sticky, and being crammed into a binder under his armour wasn't helping at all. He could already feel sweat trickling between his tits. Unless that was blood? Might be blood.

Not his, though, so he didn't worry about it.

The horn-heads were still tracking them. It was well into the night, now, but every time they stopped to catch their breath (which he needed more than the others) they could never rest long before they heard their pursuit again. It'd come to a fight sooner or later.

Cremisius was of the opinion that it should be sooner, before they all got so tired they couldn't swing their Maker-taken swords, but the commander seemed to think they could outrun the big bastards.

 

It turned out that they couldn't, of course. Thick fog had begun to roll in sometime in the wee hours, and in the darkness before sunrise the Qunari finally got them.

Cremisius had been too busy swimming for his life back on the beach to get a real good look at the enemy before. They were _massive_. Hollering at the top of their lungs, swinging weapons bigger than he was tall. Parrying was fucking impossible; all you could do was dodge, and if you couldn't do that... that was it. Dead.

Tactics indicated that he should go for the leader, the one shouting what were probably orders in Qunlat. Practicality, however, meant that he was staying on his toes and ducking, slashing at whatever non-human was nearest.

The leader cut a terrifying figure, what glimpses he got in the dark, anyway. Bigger horns than any of the rest, a good head taller; red warpaint over silver skin so he looked already streaked with gore.

Then the fog thickened further, and Cremisius could hardly see what he was fighting. Something new had entered the fray; there were yells from his people and the Qunari alike. Cut and slash, duck - had that been a human he'd just cut down? No time to see, and the sword had been for his leg.

An elf appeared out of the mist and grappled him to the ground. Their knife smelled acrid when it cut the air before his nose. Poison. He threw the elf off, and rolled. His helmet came off somewhere along the way. Maybe if he stayed down -

He barely avoided being crushed by a toppling Qunari corpse. It missed him by half an inch. And then the hammer fell. His leg crunched, he screamed his head off, and shit went dark.


	2. Day 1

When Cremisius woke, it was all quiet. Not the kind of quiet you got in a chantry, where it was actually silent; the kind of quiet of outside, of a river on the outskirts of the city. The kind of quiet where life was not muted by artifice, but merely carrying on peacefully, without any bother to anyone. Bugs chirping and birds doing their thing, and all that.

Not that he really got to appreciate it all right now because his leg was fucking _agony_. Not as bad as he remembered it being, but bad. He tried to move, and cried out, having forgotten the war hammer that had crushed his leg was, yknow, _still there._ It was very definitely broken.

"Hello?" he called. "Anyone still around? I need some help! By the way, I'm alive!"

The fog had thinned, and the sun risen; around him were only bodies, and a few carrion birds. Certainly no trace of his battalion.

He closed his eyes. "Fuck."

A branch cracked out of his field of view. He twisted as best he could, and caught sight of a very large pair of legs, and a chest streaked in red warpaint.

"Fuck," he said again, and blacked out.

Sadly, he wasn't asleep for long. He woke as the Qunari leader lifted the war hammer off him, and wished he'd stayed unconscious. The pain, for one thing, got worse before it got better. And for another, as the monster raised the weapon, he figured he wasn't going to live much longer anyway. Would've been nice, not to see it coming.

His eyes stung, and he closed them.

 

Hissrad set the hammer down, and knelt. The Vint's face twitched, but he didn't open his eyes. He thought he was about to die. If the positions were reversed, he'd probably have killed Hissrad without a thought. But that was because he was a Vint. Hissrad had honour enough not to kill an enemy that couldn't fight back.

He should move, not be kneeling here dithering. Nowhere on this island was safe, but there were some places that were at least safer than hanging around after a battle. He considered the Vint again, just as the man opened his eyes. They stared at each other for a long moment. The Vint's face was drawn and afraid, but he was calm. Death wasn't what scared him here, at least anymore. That was unusual for one so young.

Human ages were hard to guess, but this one couldn't be much older than Gatt was now. Young enough that he might yet join the Qun of his own choice, and either way, it would be a waste to kill him. He hadn't even done anything yet.

The Qun dictated the right thing to do here, once he'd figured it out, and he smiled. Which... didn't seem to reassure the little Vint any. Ah, fuck it, one thing at a time. He was covered in vitaar; it'd kill the Vint sure as a crushed skull to touch him right now. With the broken leg, Hissrad would have to carry him, so. He got moving.

He focused on cleaning off the vitaar to take his mind off the situation. Didn't really work. Where was his unit? They hadn't all died, he'd checked the bodies. So they'd left him, clearly. Probably thought _he_ was dead. Dammit. So no one would be looking for them.

This part of Seheron was unfamiliar, and the head injury that'd taken him out in the fight was making it hard to think right. He needed to find his unit, he needed to survive, he needed to avoid the damned Fog Warriors.

That'd been who'd attacked them, yet a-fucking-gain. Some of the corpses he'd searched had borne the blistered skin characteristic of the natives' poison, even if Hissrad himself hadn't fought off two of the scrawny _bas_.

 

Cremisius could barely think beyond the stabbing in his leg. His greave had been crushed, and any little movement made it dig further into his shattered shin. The only other thing rattling around in his head right now was the thought that, whatever was going on, it was probably going to get worse. Seeing as he wasn't dead. Life always got worse for him.

The Qunari had stared at him for a bit, and then wandered off to clean off his warpaint. Cremisius waited because he didn't have much choice about it. This guy seemed to be alone now; maybe he was waiting for his companions to get back. There was that old story they told to kids about how Qunari ate their enemies, and naughty children too, but he'd thought that was bullshit. Maybe it wasn't.

He spotted his dropped sword on the ground a few feet away. Was it worth it? He'd never made shit better for himself by fighting, but first time for everything. First time trying to fight with a broken leg, too! Someone break out the Asariel red.

Dragging himself over to the weapon was fun. The few feet stretched into miles as far as ease of travel was concerned, and he bit through his lip trying not to yell and alert the horn-head to his plan. But he got the sword.

When the Qunari got back, Cremisius waved it threateningly. "Stay back."

The Qunari stared at him for a second, and then laughed.

Well, fuck him, then.

The Qunari came over to him again, and held out a hand. Cremisius looked from it to the Qunari with suspicion. The Qunari gestured, as though Cremisius was a friend that had fallen and he was merely there to return him safely to his feet, and they were not enemies on opposing sides of a bloody war.

Cremisius took the hand, and the Qunari sat him up. "Hissrad," he said, pointing to himself. "Hissrad."

Must be his name. "Er, good for you. I'm Cremisius." He pointed to his chest, as Hissrad had. "Cremisius."

Hissrad nodded.

"Okay. Okay, great, got that sorted." Sitting up was starting to hurt his leg, so he tried to lie back down. Hissrad made a frustrated noise, and shook his head. "What's going on?"

Hissrad didn't say anything.

"What are you doing? Why haven't you - ah, fuck. You don't speak Tevene, do you? Great, just great."

Hissrad held his palms out flat, the Thedas-wide signal for 'I will not hurt you'. When Cremisius nodded slowly, Hissrad bent forward, and picked him up. Like, all of him. Just off the ground, into the air, like Cremisius was some sort of toy. The whole thing was very careful for a violent horn-head, but it still jolted his leg a bit.

"OI!" He tried to twist out of Hissrad's arms, felt bone scrape on bone in his shin and went limp, panting. The next thing he tried was stabbing Hissrad with the sword he still had, but Hissrad wrested it from his grip and tucked it into his belt. "Put me down! What the fuck!" Training hadn't said shit about the Qunari taking prisoners. They just killed you, right off.

Hissrad started walking; didn't seem any more bothered carrying a yelling captive than you'd be carrying a sack of potatoes. Andraste's ass, he was big. Up this close he was a mountain of silver skin and black hair, and his head looked too small attached to those ridiculous cow horns. He looked down at Cremisius with sharp eyes, the kind of eyes you found on a debt collector, or a bureaucrat, not a half-beast killer.

"Maraas shokra."

Cremisius gave up on it all a bit, at that point.

 

The Vint spent much of the walk in some kind of stupor. It happened, when the body was in shock.

The skirmish had destroyed any chance he might have had at following his unit's tracks to a place he recognised, so Hissrad simply oriented to the sun, and headed east. Eventually he would reach something useful.

Cremisius, the Vint had said his name was. Hissrad tested it on his tongue. A long word, awkward to say in full; not all Vints had names like that. Probably not a nickname, then. Other than that, it didn't tell him much, not like proper names should.

After about an hour, Hissrad had to admit defeat. This Cremisius was in too bad a way for travel, clammy and shivering even in the heat. It would take them longer than a single day to reach ordered people again, and Hissrad's charge needed tending now. Cremisius roused somewhat when Hissrad set him down, leaning against the trunk of a broadleaf tree. "What...?" When Hissrad didn't respond, his eyes glazed over again.

Hissrad's pack was small, but he had bandages, and a small supply of food. Silence reigned as he built a fire, and found appropriate sticks for splinting.

Cremisius seemed to catch on to what was happening when Hissrad started to pick at the buckles holding on the ruined greave, but didn't do anything beyond take off his glove and bite down on it in a resigned sort of a way. The day had been hard for him; Hissrad sympathised, and hoped that the Qun would make life easier for another convert. He was already learning to accept the way of things.

The greave came off with difficulty. Part of the metal had cut through the padding and the skin beneath, and there was no way to remove it without hurting Cremisius further. Then there was blood, and cutting away the leggings, and yelling. Some writhing, which made setting the bones hard. Hissrad did his best.

 

When it was done, Hissrad sat back. Cremisius wiped sweat from his brow, and spat out his glove. The pain subsided after a number of minutes he couldn't count. It was a good job. Cremisius certainly couldn't have done it. And Hissrad had been as kind as he could through the process, for which Cremisius was grateful. When he'd started seizing, Hissrad had stopped, and stroked his face with bloody fingers until he calmed and nodded to continue.

He swallowed to relax his throat, and said, "On the off chance you understand this, thank you." Qunari were, or at least this one was, a lot more civilised than he'd been led to believe. He was still scared as all fuck, but nothing had gotten worse. Yet. He smiled weakly at Hissrad, in case his words hadn't been understood, and Hissrad returned it with interest.

The expression slipped from his face after a second or two. Tired, he was so tired. And couldn't really... breathe. Shit. The binder. It'd been, what, three days?

He stared at his strange captor warily. He could just keep it on, but you weren't even supposed to wear regular bindings overnight, let alone something this tight. "Aw, heck," he muttered. "You've got more tit than I do anyway."

The cuirass was a bastard to get off, with his fingers and mind dulled as they were. Hissrad moved to help, and Cremisius pushed him away weakly. "No, no, I'm doing it. Piss off." He tossed the cuirass to his side with a clatter. "See?"

He took a huge breath when he was done unlacing. Fuck, he hadn't even realised he'd been missing it. He looked down. Hadn't been missing those, though.

 

Hissrad gave Cremisius food when he was sure that it would stay down. Cremisius ate it, and bemoaned the loss of his pack and its rations as he did. He still thought Hissrad couldn't understand him, heh.

Hissrad went hunting while there was still daylight. His supplies wouldn't last more than a day, and it looked like it was going to be longer than that before they got to a camp, before it was even really safe to move Cremisius.

By the time he returned with a boar over one shoulder, Cremisius was asleep. 


	3. Day 2

Cremisius was a fidgeter. Had been right from when he was little, fingers always twiddling away with something or other. He'd used to make lace, back home, and hadn't even minded how long it took. Just the sore neck you got.

Now, given that he couldn't really get around, and nothing else was happening, he'd just wrapped up a rather thrilling few hours of messing about with a bit of springy root next to him. Before that had been struggling through and then furiously accepting help with taking a piss.

He wasn't sure why they weren't moving on. Hissrad was demonstrably capable of carrying him, and had some purpose or other in mind. Given no other options, Cremisius would rather quite like to just find out what it was, already.

Instead, Hissrad had disappeared for three hours, and returned with a handful of giant-sized weapons, including the bloody hammer that had crushed his leg. "Beresaad," he said, in response to Cremisius' curious look.

Because that told him shit.

 

"Do you understand Common?" Cremisius called from over the dead fire at around noon. "Because that'd be funny. I don't."

Hissrad did, in fact. And Orlesian, and a bit of Silent Sister sign. Standard training. Useful.

Speaking of useful, it was about getting to the end of the time in which his pretending not to speak Tevene would get him any more information. Cremisius wasn't a talkative sort of person without feedback. All that was holding him back from speaking now was his reluctance to display his shitty accent in front of a bas.

He wasn't used to this kind of silence any more than it seemed Cremisius was. It was awkward, and boring, and he _hated_ boring. Shit, fine. He switched tongues. "I have a question."

"You bastard!" Cremisius exclaimed, after a moment of shock. "You understood me the whole time!"

Hissrad laughed, and nodded.

Cremisius crossed his arms and jutted out his chin. "Then I want to know what you plan to do to me." He looked like a petulant little kid for a moment, demanding another treat from his Tama. Then he narrowed his eyes and Hissrad remembered that he was, in fact, currently still a Vint, and fully capable of all the atrocity that entailed. Presumably.

"I was planning to bring you back to base," he said, leaning back on his hands. Non-threatening. "You're young enough that you could still convert without much difficulty adjusting. The Qun'd treat you better than Tevinter would."

"I'm nineteen," Cremisius snapped.

Hissrad grinned. "And that was what I was going to ask. Thanks!"

Cremisius' brown cheeks darkened. He'd forgotten other races did that when you made fun of them. Made them so easy to read. His mind wandered for a minute, to the viddathari that had been his favourite Tamassran when he'd been seventeen or so. To the other things that would make her face flush like that...

Ah, crap, it'd been a while since he'd visited the base's Tamassrans, hadn't it?

"I'm not going to join your Qun, either," Cremisius said, breaking Hissrad from his thoughts. "In case you missed it, I'm here to fight you lot."

"And a damn good job you're doing of it, too." Hissrad nodded to Cremisius' bandaged leg. "You couldn't even die in battle right."

Cremisius looked away, scowling. "Reckon I liked you better when you weren't talking."

So, that guess had hit the mark. He'd been hoping to die. Half-hoping, anyway. Hadn't admitted it to himself.

Hissrad dropped the subject, and left Cremisius to think it over in silence. It wouldn't take much, if he'd been suicidal already, to show him that the Qun offered a way forward.

 

He wasn't converting to the bloody Qun! If that was why he was still alive, there was no point to it. Not that there had been much before that.

Hissrad, the bastard, had struck home. The army gave a stipend to the families of dead soldiers; Cremisius could leave, and not have to worry about his sisters, or his mother. Not that he'd _wanted_ to die, not actively; just... if it happened, no big deal. But now, with him captured instead of dead, there’d be no one retrieving his tags from his body. No proof he was dead and not deserted – no stipend. 

He was sullen the rest of the afternoon, ignoring Hissrad when he tried to ask more questions, or talk about his Qun. Qun wouldn't call him right when they knew what he was any more than the army would, but the army gave him a better chance of hiding it, as long as Claudia addressed the letters and not his mother.

Hissrad fed him regularly, cold slices of that boar he'd gone off and killed himself. Cremisius would've guessed with his bare hands, but Hissrad was proving to be a lot more complicated than a mere savage, so maybe not. Either way, he was hungry. He ate it.

"Do you eat anything other than meat?" he snapped, after the fourth portion in as many hours.

"No, absolutely not." Hissrad snorted. "My diet when lost in the jungle is exactly the same as what I always eat, every day."

"Sorry." That had been a stupid question, born more of irritation than anything.

"Make it up to me," Hissrad said, leaning back against the tree next to Cremisius, pushing the advantage of reopened conversation. "There's something I don't get about your military."

Cremisius eyed him. "I'm not telling you any secret shit." Not that he knew any secret shit.

"No, no, don't worry about that." Hissrad waved the suggestion away. "We've got spies in your ranks already. No, what I don't get is... you're the first soldier I've ever seen with those." He gestured at Cremisius' chest. "Why? Do you all wear those flattening things?"

"What?" Cremisius sputtered, folded his arms over his chest, and could feel his face getting hot. Hissrad hadn't said anything, so he'd been hoping he just... hadn't noticed. Qunari women had them half a foot or more out from the sternum, after all; his were barely pimples in comparison. "I - fuck - stop looking at me!"

Hissrad looked away, and Cremisius relaced his binder. In one way it made it harder, in another easier, to breathe.

"And now they're gone again," Hissrad said when he turned back around, like it was a personal affront. "Is it a Vint thing?"

Cremisius just stared. "What? Are - are you seriously asking why most of the army, the _male_ army, doesn't have tits?"

"That's what they're called! I forgot the word there. Haven't spoken Tevene in a while. And yes."

"Maferath's left nut," he swore, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, the Tevinter army's all male, yeah?" Hissrad nodded. "Not like your one, where there's men and women. So -"

"No it's not," Hissrad interrupted. "The Antaam is all-male too."

Cremisius laughed. "No it's not. There were ladies in the fight with them out to here." He held a hand, demonstrating.

"Those were men."

"But they had tits!"

"So do you!"

Cremisius paused. "I'm - look, I'm different, alright? The army doesn't know, and if they did, I'd be kicked out."

Hissrad looked like someone had just stood up and shat in the fire. "Because you've got _tits_?" The vulgarity sounded absurd in his stilted accent.

This whole conversation was absurd. It was like Hissrad was coming at it having got the most wrong-end-of-the-stick you could grab. Cremisius started laughing, for want of something else. "You know, it does sound ridiculous when you put it like that. But yes, alright, I'll put it in that kind of way. The army reckons that people with tits can't fight as well, so they're banned. I hide my tits so they'll let me in."

Hissrad groaned, and slid down the tree with a hand over his face. "Just when I thought you Vints couldn't get any more fucked up. Now _this_."

Cremisius let him lie there in his abject horror for a while, and then said quietly, "I want to be a man. So I pretend."

Hissrad pulled himself up, and leaned closer to Cremisius, looking into his eyes without flinching. Cremisius turned his head away, and Hissrad guided it back with a calloused hand on his cheek. "I see no pretense in you," he said, in a low and measured voice.

Cremisius took a breath, but it stuttered out of him without sound. Another, and, "I - oh. Um. Good for you." Sharply, he pulled his head back, away from the soothing warmth of Hissrad's hand. "You don't understand, alright? It's just how things are over there."

"Asit tal-eb," Hissrad said, and nothing more.


	4. Day 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for: blood, injury, violence  
> the intro is out of the way, and we are into the story proper, people!
> 
> sorry for this taking so long, my mental health has been /really/ bad and motivation to write has been low as all hell. if it's any consolation, the next chapter is mostly written, I'm just saving it up in case my brain decides it's Suffering Time again and I can post it to tide any dedicated readers over until I get writing again.

Cremisius was recovering well from the injury. It'd be weeks before he walked unaided, but with the expertise of Seheron’s healers, he'd be just fine. Hissrad had had to talk him into unlacing that undershirt thing again before he went to sleep the night before, but he'd done it, in the end. Why he wore it still was beyond Hissrad. There were no other Vints around; no need to hide.

His charge was still suspicious and angry, but that was normal. He'd come around. Hissrad hadn't been trained beyond the basics in education and enlightenment of bas, but he was doing alright. It was like caring for an injured snake. Easy.

"Would you stop pacing," Cremisius demanded, breaking the silence. "It's annoying."

A really pissed off injured snake. Hissrad winked at him. "Jealous?"

Cremisius made a noise in the back of his throat, like a pig's bladder deflating, with overtones of angry machinery. "Just fuck off for a bit, would you?"

"Can't. We're sitting Vints as long as we stay here."

Slightly indignantly, Cremisius started, "Sitting - ? Oh, right. Like ducks, but 'cause we're what you're killing."

"What're ducks?"

"Kind of fat bird that swims. _Anyway_ ," he interrupted loudly, when Hissrad tried to ask another question, "let's just move, then. I'm getting sick of staring at the same bit of ground."

"I thought you didn't want to join the Qun."

Cremisius glared. "I don't. But if you're lost too, then we've got as much chance of running into my lot as yours. I'll take those odds."

"You give your loyalty to them, with how they treat you?" Hissrad's lip curled in anger. "How they force you to hide?"

"My loyalty's to my family. And my freedom. Guess you Qunari wouldn't understand that."

Hissrad knelt in front of him, and made again to touch the other's face. "There are some things more important than freedom."

Cremisius pushed his hand away. "No there aren't, you big idiot."

He actually believed that, poor guy. "Let's argue this later. Focus on healing." There were other branches of the priesthood that could explain it better.

"I'm not a mage!" Cremisius held up his arms angrily, and then dropped them back in his lap. "Focusing isn't gonna help. Can we _please_ just go somewhere?"

Not used to having help. Disliked relying on Hissrad for locomotion? No, just... genuinely wanted to move on. Seeking some kind of change, then. He sighed. "Fine. I'll get ready."

 

Being carried by Hissrad was an entirely different experience the second time around. He wasn't scared stiff, for one thing. Or not immediately so. Hissrad might be planning to convert him, but he'd shown time and again that he was not going to hurt Cremisius. Novel feeling, that kind of surety about someone.

For another, his leg was merely fucking sore, rather than blackout agony.

Mostly, though, it was. Fuck him, alright, it was intimate. Snug up against his self-appointed protector's bare chest, Cremisius watched him scan the sky and the forest for direction, clever eyes darting. His arms weren't even straining to hold him up; against his back, Cremisius could feel muscles twitching as Hissrad held him steady through the pathless jungle. Cremisius felt warm there, safe. Hissrad knew what he was doing.

What he was doing was, of course, trying to find his murderous world-conquering pals, but that was later. In the now, Cremisius let himself look. The last thing he remembered before drifting off to sleep was the broad smile on Hissrad's face at a songbird.

 

Things were all fine and good for most of the day. The most exciting thing that happened was Cremisius briefly waking and needing to relieve himself. Made Hissrad close his eyes again, even though that made it trickier to hold him up. Modesty he understood, but not in the face of practicality.

But as the sun started to set, Hissrad felt the ground under his boots squishing, and smelled rot. He swore in Qunlat.

"Cremisius," he hissed, shaking his arm. "Cremis - ugh. Wake up. Hey! Krem, wake up." What a ridiculous name. It was no good if you were actually trying to _talk_ to him.

Krem grunted, and screwed up his face. "Mmph."

"We're in the wrong place."

"Go away, Hissrad," Cremisius mumbled.

Hissrad would have liked to kick something in frustration right then, but that would fuck up Krem's leg. Instead, he gave the kind of growl people give when they _can't_ kick shit to feel better.

Krem startled upright. "What -"

"Slight alteration to travel plans," Hissrad said, looking around them. "We're gonna have to -"

 

Things always felt a bit too fast when you were waking up. They didn't, however, feel like being swung about as the guy holding you threw himself forward. Cremisius didn't see what Hissrad had ducked, just heard the yell of, "Stay down!" and felt himself being dropped.

It hurt, but not as much as it might've, as the ground gave way underneath him. Water. No, mud. Yuck.

Hissrad roared a challenge in neither Tevene nor Qunlat, already moving. He'd swung the war hammer off his back, and was using it to hold off three other horn-heads. Cremisius couldn't fathom where the monsters had been hiding.

For a moment, Cremisius couldn't tell the four fighters apart. Their eyes looked the same; feral and bloodthirsty. He picked out Hissrad after a moment, though he looked an entirely different creature from the one that had bandaged Cremisius' leg. Scary.

For all the giant size of its participants, the fight was almost too fast to follow. Hissrad's teeth were bared as he swung and ducked and rolled. A bronze-skinned Qunari made to dodge around him, eyes on Cremisius, and Hissrad took a goring horn to his bicep in turning to stop the breakaway. The hammer broke the bronze one's leg with an audible crunch, and Hissrad turned back to the other two with his bared teeth become a smile.

 

In a moment of disengage, Hissrad threw Krem's sword to him, for any good it might do him should Hissrad fall.

The Tal-Vashoth were nasty suckers. All the training of a Beresaad, usually, and none of the discipline. Hissrad had no regret in putting the hobbled one down, knowing what their kind could do if left to live. The order of death was all the Qun had for these now.

A gift they seemed determined to give him, too. And he wasn't sure they weren't going to manage it; never was. Surety got you killed.

After a crashing flurry of blows, Hissrad caved in the bigger one's ribcage with his borrowed hammer. When he rounded on the last one, it was already running, gone into the trees before he could give chase.

Shit.

There'd be more, soon. They'd found Grey One territory here, and even with how they'd let themselves go wild, Tal-Vashoth were smart enough to know that if a Qunari escaped with that knowledge, they'd all die. Everyone had reinforcements to call on Seheron.

"We've got to move fast," he said, turning to Krem.

Krem was standing. Swaying where he stood and leaning on a tree, dripping mud, but standing. And when Hissrad had turned, he'd brought up the point of his sword to Hissrad's throat.

"I am _not_ joining the Qun."

Hissrad groaned. "Now is really not the time for this."

Cremisius spoke through teeth clenched in obvious pain. "I've had enough of people making my choices for me."

"Really, really not the time," Hissrad pleaded. "The Tal-Vashoth will be hunting us, we need to run, dammit!" His eyes flicked over Krem's stance. He was all show, pain sapping any actual strength he might have had. It'd be easy to just knock him over and grab him, or even leave him behind.

Krem caught the glance. "I'll scream," he threatened. "If you grab me, I'll scream, and then we'll both die."

Hissrad wasn't eager to die, and certainly not like that. The Tal-Vashoth would fillet them, like they had that Tamassran and her kids… "Ughh. What do you want?" Despite considering it, he wasn't really going to do that to Krem. Probably.

"Take me back to the army. Make an oath." The arm holding up his sword shook slightly. "Swear you'll take me wherever I want to go, when we're out of this mess."

"Fine," Hissrad said quickly, just waiting for their deaths to burst out of the trees. "I swear. Come here."

Krem sheathed his sword. Hissrad heard him sob with relief when he was lifted off his feet again. Then, Hissrad faced the swamp, and ran.

 

Cremisius stopped being able to see much, in the fog and gathering dark. His input from the world was sound - Hissrad's laboured breathing, a splash every time he put a foot wrong - and sensation - the cold gathering in his bones, his leg bouncing and screaming with every stride forward, blood soaking into his shirt from Hissrad's untended arm.

The swamp they moved through now, if he remembered the briefings right, was something of a no man's land on Seheron. The natives had abandoned it long ago, and it wasn't the kind of territory the major powers wanted to contest. As such, it was populated almost entirely by rebels, deserters from both sides, and the overlap between the two. Lovely place for an evening.

Oh, and frogs. Loud things, them.

He had to appreciate (did he? did he really?) the irony of it all. He was, for the second bloody time, being pursued by angry horn-heads through the night. It'd been, what, a week since he'd shipped out of training? And this went and all happened. Cremisius could hear them shouting, searching in the distance. And this time he couldn't even _walk_.

Dragging himself up to face Hissrad had been one of his less well thought out ideas, to say the least. He'd done his best to keep his weight off his right leg, but he'd slipped more than once. Bone on bone was a thing he _never_ wanted to feel again. Ever. He'd ripped open the wound a bit, too, and there was a dark patch on the bandage now. And to top it all off he didn't even come up to the bastard's shoulder.

He hadn't hauled himself up that tree with the sole intention of threatening Hissrad, though. Whether Hissrad or their attackers had emerged from that fight alive, he would've raised his sword. His one chance for some control over this nightmare of a situation he'd wound up in. He wasn't going to let it go.

Who cared if it messed up whatever awkward friendship had been starting to form between them two? Not him, that was for sure. Definitely not him.

All these thoughts were had over the course of several hours, between bouts of being unable to think beyond trying not to cry out from the pain, and Hissrad stopping to wrap more shreds of his rapidly shortening half-robe around his messed up arm.

In that time, their pursuit fell behind, or was lost, until safety in the quiet returned. The beginnings of a rainstorm probably helped them escape, too.

Satina was shining her weak silver through the fog when Hissrad finally slowed. Cremisius sighed and stretched his leg, then winced, which set off another round of shivering. Andraste, he was cold.

"Sorry about the pace," Hissrad whispered. "I've found somewhere we can rest for the night."

Cremisius sat up a bit to look around. As he did, the back of his shirt peeled off where it had stuck to Hissrad's arm. A full body shudder rolled through the Qunari, who barely turned a cry of pain into a growl. "Sorry, sorry," Cremisius said.

Hissrad shrugged it off. "Had worse."

The place Hissrad had found made itself out in blocky greys in the lack of light. A ruined stone village, long abandoned, set above the waterline on an embankment. Defensible, easy to hide in. Might even be able to start a fire in one of the huts to get warm. Certainly shelter.

Being set down on solid ground at last was ecstasy. Cremisius stretched out and groaned as the pain in his leg quickly reduced now that it wasn't weighing itself down. The rest of him was almost too numb with cold to care.

"You alright?"

"Peachy. Can we get some light in here?"

It took about half an hour for Hissrad to gather enough dry wood for a fire. Most of it was from smashed furniture from the other houses, judging by the nails. Hissrad also found a number of dusty blankets; whoever'd left them in a convenient chest for them to find, Cremisius appreciated it.

By the flickering light, Cremisius saw Hissrad wincing as he moved. He'd aggravated his wound, and it was bleeding through his bandages. "Let me see that," Cremisius said, pushing himself into a sitting position with the aid of a chair leg.

"It's fine. You lie down." Hissrad shuffled over to try and push Cremisius back down.

Cremisius grabbed his hand. "That needs stitches. Siddown." He was pretty sure. A rip in a bodice that big would need stitches.

"You've got all my bandages, Krem," Hissrad said, but sat.

"You've got the rest of your... robe thingy." Cremisius waved at the garment. Hissrad still had poofy pants under that, so it wasn't like it'd sacrifice any dignity. "And lucky for you, I come from a family of tailors." He started digging through the pouches on his miraculously still-there belt. "Wait, what'd you call me?"

"Krem. Your name's too long."

"Huh. Dunno why nobody ever thought of that. I like it. Here we go!" He triumphantly held up the sewing kit he’d brought with him, the one useful remnant of his trousseau. The rest he’d sold to bribe the healer when he joined.

"There's not enough light for that," Hissrad protested half-heartedly. "I'll just wrap it more."

Cremisius snorted derisively. "I can do flowers the size of my thumbnail with my eyes shut. Embroidering your arm'll be easy. Give it here. Come on." He beckoned, tapping his fingers on his palm expectantly.

Hissrad sighed, and handed over first the remains of his robe, then his arm. Cremisius's fingers didn't even go half the way around the bicep. He was so _big_. And yet he still flinched when Cremisius started peeling off the strips of bloody fabric holding the wound closed. Baby.

Krem took it back as he began to see the wound in its entire. The horn had ripped an open trench across the belly of Hissrad's upper arm an inch deep at its shallowest point. How Hissrad had carried him all that way without screaming, he had no idea. Maker.

He had to move fast, then, because it was bleeding freely and Hissrad was starting to look woozy. His fingers kept slipping in the blood as he went, but he stayed focused. Reassembling the bits of shredded flesh wasn't so hard, but it was slow. "Sorry, sorry," he whispered as he went.

"Had worse," Hissrad said again.

Yeah, but this had been for him. Hissrad could've blocked, but he'd had to turn, had taken this to save Krem's damn life. And got a sword held on him for his trouble.

Blood ran down his arms as he worked; he could hear it dripping from his elbow onto the floor. The drops slowed as time passed, and more of the wound was closed again. It was hardly stitching you could sell on market day, but it held.

 

The fire was starting to die down by the time Krem finished wrapping Hissrad's arm. It was still raining outside, and a wind was beginning to blow through the cracks in the roof. His arm hurt.

A faint clinking caught his attention. Krem was shivering again, what remained of his armour knocking together with the motion. His lips were purple with cold, wet clothes clinging to the shapes of a body that Hissrad noticed for the first time possessed a wiry strength. His damp hair flopped over one eyebrow.

"And here I've been all focused on me." Hissrad offered Krem a grin that he didn't return. "You're freezing to death."

Krem shuffled closer to the fireplace. "I'm f-fine."

"You're really not. Come here, I'll warm you up." The amount of fat on his body meant that he didn't really feel the cold; most Qunari didn't. Krem was built small; did well enough in the heat, but when the temperature dropped he suffered.

Krem looked like he was going to refuse, but then a gust of wind blew by, and his teeth started chattering. He nodded, and let Hissrad half-lift, half-drag him closer. They were both of them smeared with blood and mud, so getting a bit more painted around didn't really matter. No sense wasting what drinking water they had on washing. Hissrad crossed his legs, and settled Krem sideways in his lap, wrapping blankets around them both.

Krem relaxed against him by amounts, again reminding Hissrad of a wounded animal. He just needed some care. Care Hissrad was honestly glad to provide, amidst the shithole that was life on Seheron. He stroked a hand over the back of Krem's head; Krem sighed and leaned into the touch. He was still shivering.

"You know," Hissrad spoke with caution, "you'd warm up faster if you took some of your clothes off."

Krem stiffened again. Damn.

"Sorry. Forget I said it."

"No, you're right." His tone was clipped, nervous. "Just. Don't look at me, yeah?" Hissrad closed his eyes, and Krem struggled alone through getting his clothes off. He left his smalls and chest-flattener on, but Hissrad could feel that everything else had come off, and the flattener was loose. Krem's skin was cold and damp against his, muscles jumping as he shivered, and then steadied. "You can open your eyes now."

Cremisius scowled nervously up at Hissrad, clutching the blankets around himself. Everything he'd been wearing was in a haphazard pile next to them. Three socks sat on top of the sword belt. Huh, right, that explained the bulge. Hissrad had been trying to figure that out.

"Better?" he asked.

Krem nodded. Hissrad tossed some more wood on the fire, and settled in to try and meditate. He hadn't done it properly since before the Vints had landed. Fighting itself had been a balm to his soul, to meet in honest battle rather than to hunt for poison and daggers hiding behind innocents, but not so much as this.

It was peaceful, sitting there, with Krem curled close to him and breathing slowly. Hissrad thought he'd fallen asleep, until he felt fingers brush the bandage on his arm.

"I'm sorry," Krem said.

Hissrad opened an eye. "What for?"

Krem hung his head. "For threatening you with a sword. Earlier."

Hissrad didn't know what to say to that. It had been poorly timed, and he'd been a bit pissed off, but he understood.

"I'm not sorry for making you promise what you did, and I'm gonna hold you to it." Cremisius gave Hissrad a look as determined as it was vulnerable. "But you saved my life. And you've never tried to hurt me. So I guess I'm sorry for throwing that in your face."

"You're scared," Hissrad murmured. "Of the Qun. Of me." He knew what they were taught about the Qun in Tevinter; he didn’t blame him.

Krem laughed. "Yeah, the Qun. But I don't think I need to be afraid of you, do I?"

Setting aside that Hissrad was part of the Qun, technically, "No. You don't."

Krem reached up a tentative hand, and cupped Hissrad's cheek, as Hissrad had done to him before. "You're not what I thought you'd be, you know."

It was strange, to have Krem touch him back. Good. Nice. "Oh yeah?"

"Mm." Krem leaned up a bit. His thumb made light circles at the corner of Hissrad's mouth. "I don't reckon I was, um, taught right about you Qunari." His voice dropped in volume as he stumbled over his words, until Hissrad could scarcely hear it over the thumping of his own heart. "They should've told us you're... that you're kind. And gentle." His cheeks darkened, in that charming way they did. "And that I'd want to do this."

And then he pushed himself up, and drew Hissrad down, and pressed a hesitant, barely-there kiss to Hissrad's lips.

 

The moment hung, like velvet on a windless day; not stiff, but still, existing somewhere outside the same time as everything else. Cremisius' heart beat in his throat, and he couldn't breathe. A second passed. Then two. And Hissrad didn't kiss him back, or move at all, and Krem's heart dropped back into its usual place in his chest and he pulled away.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

Hissrad looked like he wasn't quite sure what had happened yet. "Krem, I -"

"Nah, nah, don't worry. It's alright." Krem cuddled back down, bare skin sliding over Hissrad's as he did. He was so _warm_... but no. Okay. He wasn't interested.

"You're my friend," Hissrad managed.

"Yeah. You're mine too." And he was glad of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> speaking of mental health, comments telling me specific things that you liked or quotes or whatever make me /really really/ happy. and if anyone wanted to shoot me a message on nonbinarygreywarden.tumblr.com to discuss the story, having people to help me spitball ideas is very helpful!  
> to clarify, i have the general plot all hashed out, i just tend to quibble over tiny details. sometimes the best thing is when my girlfriend is just like KY YOU'RE GETTING TOO COMPLICATED. because i usually am.


	5. Day 4, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> day 3: who are you  
> day 4: i'm you but gayer

Hissrad woke with his stomach growling.

No, that wasn't quite right: Hissrad was jerked from his half-asleep thoughts by his stomach growling.

They'd eaten the last of the food noon yesterday, and then all of what happened had happened, and he'd lost a good jug or so of blood probably. So, it was time to go and find something to eat.

He and Krem had fallen asleep together on the floor, still curled up for warmth. Taking great care not to wake him, Hissrad gently lifted Krem off his chest and slid out of the blankets. Kept his eyes shut until he'd tucked them back around Krem.

With his arm the way it was, the hammer he'd scavenged from the battlefield was no good; none of the Beresaad weapons were. He still felt guilty for taking them, but the skirmish site wasn’t likely to see a Taarbas for some time yet, and he had a better chance of bringing them home. He took Krem's sword instead, and padded outside.

The word 'swamp' always conjured up an image of somewhere nasty, somewhere dank and smelly and full of things that would like to eat your toes in the not-fun way. Other than the smell, this wasn't that.

The rain had stopped, and left everything clean in its wake. The clouds were still tinged orange from the last remains of the sunrise. The world shone.

It was completely at odds with his mood.

The frogs should be pink or something. And there'd be ... no, not a hurricane or anything, nothing violent, but the sort of washed-out light right as dawn was starting, that messed with the eye and had people getting their horns stuck in trees if they weren't careful.

He felt strange. The closest feeling he could compare it to was the kind of angry that happened when you'd been picking at a bit of tangled string for two hours and weren't even sure if you'd made it worse or not. But not angry at anything specific… or even angry at all, honestly. Just confused, and frustrated with that.

He touched his lips, thinking of Krem's. Vints were weird. Normal people didn't just go around, kissing people they liked. Kissing their friends. Who did that? No matter how unlikely, or interesting, or stupidly brave that friend might be, or if they made you feel like laughing in the middle of a world full of pointless murder.

Not even if they had soft lips. Or blushed.

Sure, if Krem had been a Tamassran... but he wasn't, and he never would be. Tamassrans were women. And they weren't friends like Krem was.

Ugh. It was all a mess. Nearly enough to make him regret rescuing the guy. Not actually, though. Really not actually.

Krem'd found some courage thanks to him, even if it wasn't the kind Hissrad had hoped; he'd held up that sword and his eyes had burned with the will to fucking live, and do what he wanted, and fuck anyone who'd stop him. It'd really been something. Something powerful, that harked back to days when he’d had more hope. He felt that hope again, looking at Krem.

Which was another thing that was damned confusing. He gripped the tiny sword more firmly, and marched off to find something to kill.

 

Cremisius half-woke as Hissrad left. He stayed where he was, with his eyes shut and a feeling in his stomach that was exactly not the one you ought to feel after a night of snuggling with someone great.

There hadn't been much in the way of talking after the kiss. Hissrad had seemed to be in deep thought, and Krem had been too embarrassed to say much. And they’d both been dead tired.

He hoped Hissrad'd be back eventually, the way he always had been before; hoped that he hadn't offended some as-yet-unknown Qunari custom and been abandoned. Worse, he might have just offended Hissrad. He'd said they were still friends, but Krem knew how that went. _I just want to be friends_. It was just what you said, an escape he'd made many a time; the easy way out.

It was just what you said, after the baker's boy kissed you by the canal, and then you pretended things were normal with him until you said goodbye, and then you never talked to him again. He'd only liked Krem because of how his waist looked in that blue linen dress, anyway. Idiot.

Maybe Krem was the idiot, now.

He rolled over onto his back, and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. He shouldn’t have kissed him. Still didn’t know why he _had_. A Qunari. Of all fucking people.

He didn’t know any more about Hissrad than the baker’s boy, or Julius from down the street, had known about him.

Krem started tallying in his head, to pass the time, and in a masochistic little way to exacerbate his guilt and self-reprehension, what he _did_ know about Hissrad.

Not his favourite colour, even. Or his mother’s name, or how old he was. What he thought of the war, of Tevinter, of pineapple on flatbread.

Just that he’d spared the life of a mortal enemy, and cared whether that enemy was cold; that he smiled when he slept, and when he killed; that his scarred and calloused hands were soft when they held him; that he could look at Krem, and see only the truth.

Krem didn’t know much. But he’d kissed Hissrad wanting to know more.

Kissed him after holding a sword on him, and a whole lot of horrible shit had happened besides. Cremisius had had little enough kindness in his life. No wonder he’d imprinted like a motherless nug.

He sat up, then smacked himself sharply. The pain helped clear his head; he was being completely ridiculous, with all of this. It was weird enough that he considered Hissrad a friend. _Let’s not take it any further_ , he said to himself. _You idiot._

If Hissrad came back, Cremisius resolved, he was going to back himself the fuck off. No more heartfelt confessions or cuddling. Friendship, and grudging friendship at that, and then he was going to get back to the army and think no more about it.

"Hey, do you like fish?" Hissrad asked, ducking through the door. "'cause I don't. And I caught like, twelve."

He'd stored them by sticking them on one of his horns. Krem started laughing, the tension in his shoulders abruptly lessening; Hissrad looked ridiculous and, in the light of day and decked out in fish, for certain not the sort of person you generally found attractive.

 

Hissrad crossed his arms in mock offence, but he was laughing too. Laughing again, and it was Krem’s fault. For all his confusion it seemed little had really changed. Krem still had his way of easing the knots in Hissrad’s chest.

“They were slippery little shits,” he defended to the still-giggling Vint. “I didn’t have anything to carry them in, and I wasn’t expecting them to take so long to die.” Hissrad started sliding the fish off his horn one by one, and piling them on a relatively clean rock by the door. “They wouldn’t stop flopping.”

That set Krem off again, little snorts of mirth shaking the blankets down his chest. “How did you even catch them?” he asked, when his breathing started to even out again. He pulled the blanket back up to his armpits, screening abdominal musculature Hissrad had been admiring. “Do you have a fishing rod shoved up your arse, or…?”

“Stabbed them.” Hissrad tossed Krem’s sword to him.

Krem’s laughter cut off abruptly, and he stared from the sword to Hissrad warily. “You’re giving it back?”

“I figure it might make you a bit less jumpy.” Strangely enough, Hissrad trusted Krem more after the stunt with the sword. It had put them on more even ground; made them willing companions, rather than Krem as Hissrad’s sort-of captive. Krem had security and autonomy, which meant he was more open to working with Hissrad, and less to putting the sword between his ribs. Still, if the thought was there… “And if you kill me, you’re dead too.”

“I’m not gonna kill you,” Krem snapped with no malice. “I told you, I’m not scared of you.” The near-reference to the events of the night before was clearly realised a moment later, and Krem looked away, a flush spreading from his cheeks all the way to the irritated crease on his nose. Hissrad took note of the rueful look on Krem’s face before it smoothed again.

Hissrad sat down, and started piling more wood onto the nearly-out fire. Krem was looking anywhere but him. Hissrad tried not to let that hurt, though something already felt missing when Krem wasn’t smiling. He coughed awkwardly. “So, how do you even cook fish?”

Krem snorted, and looked back at Hissrad with shy derision. “You live on an island.”

“Yeah?”

“How d’you not know how to cook fish?”

Why would he? “It was never my duty.”

“Yeah, but.” Krem’s tongue stumbled, wrong-footed. “You pick things up.”

Hissrad shook his head. “Not under the Qun, you don’t.”

Krem twisted one side of his face, eye narrowing and top lip raising in a puzzled sneer. “Really? You never help each other with stuff?”

“Everyone has their own duties, that they’re best suited for. It’d be an insult to try and interfere.”

“That’s weird.”

Hissrad leaned back, raising scornful eyebrows. “Your army’s thing about tits is weird.”

Krem’s smile at that was broad and warm. “You still don’t get it. It’s great.” His eyes met Hissrad’s, and showed how much he meant it. This time he didn’t look away nearly so fast. “Anyway, I’ve no idea how to cook them either, not without a frying pan. But I can scale ‘em. Got a knife?”

Hissrad had four. He held one out to Krem, who shook his head.

“Not in here, it’ll make a mess.” Krem pulled on his still-damp tunic. His good leg drew up for a moment when he threw off the blankets, a defensive result of the lack of trousers, Hissrad guessed, before he lowered it flat again. “Carry me outside?” It was definitely a request, not a demand, and he sounded nervous making it.

Hissrad grunted when he lifted Krem. Carrying him the night before had been fine, fear and battle-blood overriding the pain, but now even as small a weight as this strained his wound, and he could only carry him so far.

“Shit,” Krem gasped, when Hissrad put him down a lot harder than he’d meant to. “I’m sorry. Did you rip your stitches?”

“No, no, I’m good.” Hissrad flexed his arm, counting his breaths as the pain receded. When it was manageable again, he handed Krem his smallest knife, the hilt of which was still too big for his hand. “I suppose we’re stuck here for a while, then. Until I can carry you more than ten steps.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are.” Krem’s eyes flickered down to his leg. “It’s bad, isn’t it? I can feel it.”

Hissrad nodded mutely. If Krem didn’t get to a healer, from one side or the other, he’d never walk again. Might even lose the leg, if infection set in.

“Well.” Krem sat up a little straighter, with a brittle smile. “No point worrying about that now. Pass the fish.”

Hissrad watched him get started, preparing the fish with precise efficiency that belied the slight clench to his jaw. Krem was worried. His own choices, and his power over them, mattered to him; he was scared of losing that, in any of the ways now before him.

And yet he just kept on going, bludgeoning his way through whatever he had to, doing what needed to be done with a sarcastic jab never far from his lips. Hissrad wondered how long it’d be before Seheron sucked that out of him.

When the fish were clean, they went back inside. Krem tried to just haul himself up on Hissrad’s good arm, announcing that he was going to give hobbling a go, but he collapsed inside two seconds, and taught Hissrad a few new swearwords in Tevene.

Cooking the fish was a mess. First, Krem tried spearing one on a stick and roasting it. That was how they discovered that fish fell apart when it cooked, and fed the fire more than they fed themselves. They had to haul ass outside for a while until the smoke thinned.

Then Hissrad suggested trying to fry them on a hot rock. It worked at first, but then the fish stuck, and burned, and fat ran into the fire. That made it flare and hiss, and Krem jumped back with a yelp. He’d singed his eyebrows. It looked sort of cute, actually.

When they were down to eight fish, and hadn’t had more than a few mouthfuls of actual food between them, Krem groaned and put his head in his hands. “I’m an idiot. Get leaves. Big ones, that we can wrap them in.”

Hissrad did, and watched with interest as Krem wrapped the fish and nestled each parcel among the coals. “Won’t they burn?”

Krem paused. “I hope not. They shouldn’t, right?”

They didn’t.

“Didn’t you say you don’t like fish?” Krem teased a while later, as he fished the parcels out of the coals with sticks. “So these are all mine?”

Hissrad laughed and knocked his elbow into Krem’s arm. “How many could you even eat? One? Half of one?” It was hard to reconcile Krem’s size with the competent and steadfast image Hissrad had of him. He’d make a great assassin; no one would look twice at him until he’d already cut their throats.

“You’d be surprised,” Krem retorted, handing over five of the wrapped fish anyway. “Doubt I could keep up with you, though.” He put on an attentively helpful face. “You sure you don’t need all of them?”

“Hey, it’s muscle.” Hissrad flexed his good arm and winked. “I’m young yet!”

Krem blinked a couple of times, and seemed to shake himself from a daze before he responded. “Er, how young? I just realised I never asked.”

Hissrad had to think about it for a moment. He’d been eighteen when he got here, so, “Twenty-five.”

Krem looked surprised. “Huh. You’re younger than I thought.”

A half-hearted smile curved Hissrad’s lips. He didn’t feel young. Counting up the years just then – had it really been only seven he’d been here? Felt like so much more. “Must be all the scars,” he joked.

Krem looked like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to laugh or not, and settled for unwrapping his fish. Hissrad followed suit.

It didn’t exactly look appetising. The fish had lost its shape almost entirely as it cooked, become more textured mush than anything resembling a real animal. The still-whole eye stared up out of the mess accusingly. _You couldn’t even turn me into decent food?_ it seemed to say. _Pathetic._

Hissrad thought about sticking his tongue out at it, like a little kid. The fish could be disappointed in him if it wanted. He’d still killed it.

It tasted terrible, too, bland and gluey. About the only thing he could say in its favour was it didn’t remind him of the one kind of fish he’d actually liked, those wraps that that guy in the city had made. He shied away from the rest of the memory.

Krem didn’t seem to care, either about the taste, or the multitude of tiny bones this sort of fish apparently had. Then again, Krem’s fingers were small enough to pick them out without much difficulty. Hissrad hadn’t known fish _had_ this many bones.

He must’ve looked sour as he picked away at his food, because after a while, Krem caught his eye and grinned.

“Thought you said you’d out-eat me, big guy. I seem to be winning so far.”

Hissrad groaned. “It’s all the bones,” he complained. “The shit does a fish even need this many bones for?”

“Aw.” Krem stuck out his bottom lip, clearly holding back a smirk. “They pick the bones out your fish for you, under the Qun? Maybe I should reconsider joining if the catering’s that good.” The smirk stopped hiding, and spread up into his crinkled eyes. He put his own fish aside. “Give it here, I’ll do it.”

Gratefully, Hissrad handed over his fish. Krem made quick, though messy, work of it; by the time he was done, what structural integrity the fish had had inside its skin was destroyed. “Do you have someone to feed you under the Qun, too?” he teased when he was nearly done.

Hissrad made a grab for the fish, but Krem nearly toppled backwards to keep it out of his reach, and Hissrad backed off for fear of damaging the reckless idiot’s leg.

“Here,” Krem laughed, holding out a globule of fish between his fingers. “Go on, eat up.”

From the shock on his face, he definitely wasn’t expecting Hissrad to actually do it. It’d be a waste not to, and besides, throwing Krem for a loop gave Hissrad a chance to snatch his food back. He swiped his tongue a final time across the digits in his mouth to clean them, and sat back triumphantly to begin eating properly.

Krem’s smile was gone again as he returned to his own food.

Maybe finger licking was some kind of taboo in Tevinter, or something. Surely how off centre Krem looked wasn’t normal. (He was Ben-Hassrath. He would’ve been a shame to his trainers if he couldn’t notice the way Krem’s pupils widened, and his eyelids quivered; if he couldn’t tell what that meant.)

“So.” Krem spoke between mouthfuls, his voice a little hoarser than it had been. His gaze darted to Hissrad and away, back and away again, twitching so fast that he wasn’t _quite_ staring. Hissrad pretended he didn’t notice, because he knew that if he said anything, Krem would stop. “What is the Qun like? Everything I’ve thought so far’s been wrong, so what’s the truth?”

Hissrad’s thoughts stuttered in surprise. “It, uh – what do you want to know?”

Krem shrugged. The movement scooted him sideways a little, closer to Hissrad. “I dunno. I’m just curious, I guess. I want to know more about you.” His nostrils flared, and he clarified with a small laugh, “I mean, like, all of you. Qunari in general.” Maybe he wouldn’t make such a good assassin, after all. He was terrible at lying.

Hissrad rolled his eyes. “You’re not giving me much to go on, here, Krem. You wanna know something, you’ve got to be specific.”

“Right, yeah.” Krem occupied himself with eating for a while, still pretending he wasn’t looking at Hissrad. “What about your job, then? You said catching fish wasn’t your job, so what is?”

“I’m of the Ben-Hassrath,” Hissrad said proudly.

“Oh, right, right,” Krem nodded sagely, “one of the ben – ben sa – I have no idea what that is.”

Hissrad chuckled. “They don’t teach you much before they chuck you in the cauldron, do they? Ben-Hassrath are… well, you’ve got the spies, the re-educators, and the enforcers. I’m that last one.” He tipped his chin back and popped a morsel of fish in his mouth, smiling. “Pretty high-ranked, too.”

Krem didn’t look impressed. Probably still didn’t get it. “So what were you doing chasing Tevinter foot soldiers through the jungle? If you’re so important and all.”

“Everyone does what’s needed,” Hissrad deflected. It was true, his branch did usually stay in the cities. Especially ones like him, whom the Qun couldn’t afford to waste. “There were hundreds of boats; I pitched in to help.”

“But that wasn’t your duty, was it?” Krem sing-songed, clearly taking pleasure in wrongfooting Hissrad. “So what were you really doing?” 

Hissrad’s shoulders slumped, and he sighed.

Krem seemed to realise he’d hit on something serious, and started backing off. “You don’t have to answer, it’s alright –”

“No, it’s fine.” The fish was even more tasteless than it had been moments before. The sun outside suddenly seemed too bright. “I shouldn’t have been there, you’re right. My job’s with the people, keeping the streets safe. I put in a special request to lead a unit to the beaches when we got word of your autumn campaign plans.”

_Now_ Krem looked impressed. “That was supposed to be a surprise attack. The Decurion was going on and on about what a secret it was, how we must tell _no one_.” He waggled his fingers around his face mysteriously, then chuckled. “How many spies d’you have?”

“No more than you do in our ranks. I should know, I hunt them out.” Hissrad laughed, but it was hollow. The commanders in the city hadn’t questioned his request, and nor had the Tamassrans; he hadn’t been pushed to it, and so he hadn’t talked about his reasons.  He turned away slightly, both hoping and not that Krem would ask.

Krem didn’t say anything. After a few seconds, there was a loud slurping sound, and Hissrad turned back to see the man sucking chunks of congealed fat from his fish’s disconnected spine. “What?” Krem protested, when Hissrad gave him a disgusted look.

“Is the food in Tevinter that bad?” It wasn’t like he’d really needed to talk about it, anyway, and Krem was very good at side-tracking his thoughts in one way or another. Showing a disproportionate amount of enthusiasm towards a truly awful meal was certainly less confusing than the other ways Hissrad found himself distracted by Krem.

Krem spat a vertebra into the fire. “Thought your lot was all about not wasting stuff.”

“Yeah, but.” Hissrad wrinkled his nose. “We dress up the nasty crap into something palatable. Do you know what spices are?” No one had ever said that they _didn’t_ have them in Tevinter, but the availability of cardamom was admittedly not too relevant to his education.

“Yeah, think I’ve heard of those.” Krem had a bit of a hard look in his eye, smiling that brittle smile of his. “Had ‘em all the time when I was younger, great way to hide the fact that you bought a cheap cut of meat a few days past its best. Then shit got worse, and we couldn’t even afford that. I’ve eaten way worse than this, big guy.”

Hissrad ate in silence for a time. “You were… poor, then?” The concept was something he knew from his lessons – in other places, some people didn’t have the advantages of others, and through no fault of their own didn’t get what they needed to survive. He still didn’t understand how a country could get by doing that to its people.

“Yeah,” Krem said with a bitter laugh. “Were, are, always will be.”

Hissrad laid a hand on Krem’s arm. “Children don’t suffer like that under the Qun.” If Krem would only join with him, he’d never fear starvation again.

“That’s something to be said for it.” Krem reached up to lace their greasy fingers together. “Enough about me, then. What was your childhood like?”

“Fine? I had a good Tama.” Hissrad smiled fondly, remembering. “She called me Ashkaari, and made me eat my greens.” A real smile started to return to Krem’s face again, and Hissrad decided he wanted to keep it there this time, if he could. “Ashkaari means ‘one who thinks’. She called me that because I was always good at getting around her rules. After she recommended me for the Ben-Hassrath, she started giving me extra fruit when I managed to out-think her.”

Krem squeezed Hissrad’s hand. “She sounds nice. A Tama’s like a mother, then?” 

“Uh, yeah. I guess.” He was pretty sure he remembered what a ‘mother’ was. The angle was starting to hurt his fingers, so he moved his hand, still tangled with Krem’s, to sit between them on his knee.

“What was her name?” Krem looked like the question mattered to him more than it should.

Hissrad paused, frowning. “Who needs to know that? We called her Tama. Some of the other Tamassrans called her Silaar.”

Krem looked disappointed. “Right, names are different for your people, aren’t they?”

Of course, and they were different for Vints, too. Hissrad kept forgetting they just had the one. “Yeah, they’re just genealogical information for us, so the Tamassrans can assign you breeding partners without crossing lines too much.”

“They assign partners?” Krem rolled his eyes at a joke he didn’t share. “Sounds nice.” There was a flash of anger in the hard gnash of his mouth around the word _nice_ , but then it passed and he was happy again. He waggled his eyebrows, looking up at Hissrad and leering comically. “So, breeding, huh? You done much of that?”

“Yeah, a couple of times.” It was pretty much just like popping down to see the Tamassrans, except no one took any herbs before. “If you’re asking about sex, though, Qunari don’t just have it for productive purposes.” He returned Krem’s suggestive smirk, and let it twine along the edges of his words.

Krem laughed, a little louder than the information really warranted, but it was a warm sound. “Wondered about that. You know, back home people think that’s how it is for you. That you don’t, er, do it for fun.” He gestured vaguely to indicate his meaning. “At all.”

“Oh, we definitely do.” Hissrad ran his thumb across the backs of Krem’s knuckles, and then pulled away to continue eating. “My food has gone a little cold,” he teased. “Mind if I heat it up on your face?”

Krem’s blush deepened to the point where the tops of his brown cheeks turned a dark rose; the colour’s intensity didn’t dim his wide grin in the least. “Oh, fuck you.”

The rest of the meal passed in pleasant conversation, their hands and arms never far from one another. Hissrad’s chest felt lighter than it had in years.

 

There was only so much of the (honestly, disgusting) fish that their stomachs could take. Cremisius stored away the leftovers, wrapping them tightly in the leaves again in the hope ants wouldn’t find them. Hissrad complained half-heartedly, but Krem just shook his head and smiled at him. They were both far too full for much in the way of liveliness.

Hissrad had found somewhere to refill the water skin, so Krem splashed himself with it, cleaning at least some of the grime off his face. Maker, he needed a bath.

“I swear,” Hissrad groaned, after doing the same, “if I never eat fish again, it’ll be too soon.”

“Not much else around, is there?” Cremisius asked, leaning against Hissrad’s side. His leg was aching something fierce, and holding himself up in any kind of regular sitting position just made it worse.

“Dunno.” He looked at Krem archly. “ _I’ll_ figure it out, though. You’re in pain. Rest.”

Hissrad’s capability to damn near read his thoughts was bloody annoying, just on the principle of the thing. “We need to figure out our next move,” Krem argued. “We’re lost, and in hostile damned territory with next to no supplies.”

“Alright. Hey, come here.” Hissrad wrapped an arm around Krem’s shoulders. The support took a bit of the strain off his back, and he relaxed into it willingly. “I need to go out scouting if we’re ever going to get un-lost, see if I can’t find some signs of where my unit went. I’ll try find some food that isn’t shit along the way.”

Worry chilled up Cremisius’ spine. “You’re planning to keep your promise, right?”

“I am.” Hissrad agreed without hesitation, nor the carefully neutral face of a liar. If anything, he looked rueful. “Wherever you want to go.”

Krem’d had to ask, though he’d known the feeling was stupid. He’d meant it when he said he wasn’t afraid of Hissrad, and didn’t think he needed to be. It was from that the misgiving had arisen, actually; a subconscious attempt on his own part to feel something that would harden his heart, where he could not manage it through will.

But it failed, because honestly, he wanted it to. Cremisius tossed an arm around Hissrad’s waist and pretended it was for support. “Good to hear. Alright then, you’re going scouting. What’m I gonna do while you’re gone?”

“Rest,” Hissrad insisted.

“Fuck you,” Krem said amicably.

“Really, Krem –”

“Don’t ‘Krem’ me.” That didn’t make sense as a comeback. Whatever. His leg was sore. “Listen, I’m going to go mad if you just leave me sittin’ here on my own with nothing to do.” Not like there was much to do, or ever would be, until he got dumped at the camp’s front gates and rushed to the healers. Though – hold on.

“What is there –”

“No, no, shut up a minute,” Krem interrupted Hissrad a second time, holding up a finger to wait.

Hissrad could hardly just bring him up to the gates and hand him over all nice. The Qunari would get pin-cushioned before he got that close, and Cremisius put down as a traitor. “You can’t bring me right to the army,” he said slowly.

Hissrad had apparently got the message, and just waited for Krem to continue down his idea.

“I’ll need to walk at least some of the way, pretend I escaped from Qunari captivity or something. And that means I’ll need a crutch of some kind.” Krem smiled, and sat up straighter. Then he winced and quickly slouched again. It was like the pain from his leg was spreading as muscle tension through his entire body. Even his tits hurt – though that might be because of all the binding. “While you’re gone, I’ll make that, and try to figure out how to walk with it.”

Hissrad didn’t like the idea; reasoned that Krem would hurt himself trying to walk, and Hissrad would get back to find him in worse state than he had been when they met.

Krem said ‘met’ was a weird way of putting it, and besides, his plan made sense. Anyway, the crutch would take him ages to make. He was a tailor-turned-soldier, not a carpenter. So unless Andraste was very, very nice, and showed the Maker her tits to get him on-side too, Krem would likely not actually be trying to walk until well after Hissrad got back.

“So you just get me – I don’t know. What do you make a crutch out of?”

Hissrad smacked his face down onto his hand. “A big stick, Krem. And padding.”

Krem sat back, pleased. “So you’ll help me do it?” That sounded way easier than what he’d been imagining, actually.

“No, I – _vashedan_!” Hissrad pointed an angry finger at Krem’s nose, his face not far behind it. “You’re a little shit of a Vint, you know that?”

“Someone might’ve mentioned it, yeah.” Hissrad’s face was still close to his, close enough to see the creases in his silver-grey lips. Cremisius shoved his next thought out before it could fully form. _Don’t ruin this now_. He grinned blithely to cover the shudder in his breath. “But no one ever got shit done by being timid about it.”

“Fair.” Hissrad laughed a little. Krem knew he’d not really been angry with him. Just worried, trying to take care of him. It was nice and all, it really was, but he knew what he was doing. “Fine, I’ll find some stuff somehow.” He pushed himself to his feet, leaving Krem bereft of his warmth. “You sure you can’t just magic something up?”

Krem shoved Hissrad’s leg, which was about all he could reach from the floor. “If I were a mage, I’d be a lot richer than I am, and not _here_.”

Hissrad turned where he stood in the doorway, and smiled fit to outshine the sun on his face. “Well, I’m glad you’re not a mage, then. Even if it is really inconvenient.”

“You’re inconvenient!” Krem yelled to his retreating back, and Hissrad laughed. “And when you get back, I need to take a piss!” He didn’t say _so am I_. Didn’t even think it. So there.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *strums guitar* my mental health is still shite, i have two essays due in like three days that i haven't started, i need to schedule another shot of testosterone, i don't have any clean forks, and i've barely done any writing the entire month
> 
> but on the plus side, new chapter!! i'm really happy with this one guys, I really hope you liked it :3c  
> again, my tumblr's nonbinarygreywarden   
> and look! my hair is blue! http://nonbinarygreywarden.tumblr.com/post/144032990987/blue-hair-i-look-fucken-great-and-im-so tell me i'm pretty


	6. Day 4, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few things are figured out. Krem and Hissrad talk about their feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god, guys, i'm sorry for the long wait for this one. I have had absolutely no motivation to write these last few months. A couple of really lovely comments in the last couple of weeks reminded me how much I love this story, and made me want to write again. Also, I got on medication again! So that helped. I hope the length of it makes up for the wait!!!!!
> 
> if I even still have any readers at this point
> 
> content warnings for:   
> deadnaming: early on in this chapter, Krem briefly remembers being deadnamed by his mother.   
> internalised transphobia and cissexism related to that: Krem, obviously. He has a period of strong dysphoria, assigns gender to body parts, and worries about being seen as a woman.   
> sex. though if you clicked on this i'm guessing that's not a problem. i'm not sure you can really skip it and still have everything make sense, because a lot of emotions happen at the same time, and there's lots of thinking? But if it's really not your cup of tea then send me a message on tumblr at nonbinarygreywarden and I'll write you a summary of the non-sex bits <3

Today was a good day. Scouting had gone well, and he had much to share, along with his bag now full of fruit to replace those awful fish. Hissrad took a moment to admire the orange light streaming through the trees. The sun was nearly set, and night returning; though it would not, by his guess, be as cold as the night before, he had certain hope the sleeping arrangements would be the same.

Krem looked up when Hissrad padded inside, ducking to get his horns through a doorway not made for Qunari. “Hey,” he smiled, or tried to, with several small bits of something held in his mouth. “How’d it – shit, sorry, pins.” He spat the things into his hand. “How’d it go?”

“Fine. Good, actually.” Hissrad dropped his pack to the floor beside Krem. “No more fucking fish now.” It was going to be at least another hour before he got tired of reminding himself of that. No more shit-damned fish. He started doing a cooldown stretch by one of the walls, so his muscles wouldn’t seize up after all the tree-climbing he’d done. Fruit!

Krem spent a minute or so tidying up the contents of his lap before he could have a look. He’d got out his sewing kit again, and had been mending a rip in his shirt, with perfect little stitches that left the fabric lying perfectly flat. No wonder he’d done such a good job of Hissrad’s arm.

“Scouting, huh?” Krem said, rummaging through Hissrad’s bag. He quirked an amused eyebrow. “For mangoes, apparently.”

“If you’re going to complain, you can have the fish,” Hissrad retorted, laughing when Krem backed off again hastily. “Anyway,” he grunted, shifting positions and feeling his hamstrings complain, “I thought _you_ were going to make a crutch.”

Krem hefted something out of Hissrad’s sight. “Did that.” The stick clattered again when he put it down.

Hissrad finished his stretches, and sat down beside Krem, wiping sweat off his forehead. “Pass the water skin.” Then, “It’s empty!” Damn it, he was parched.

“Sorry.” Krem rubbed the back of his neck. “I had a bit of a wash.”

Hissrad had noticed Krem was clean, but hadn’t connected it through to any conclusions until now. “I’ll go fill it. Hope the bath was nice.”  He ruffled Krem’s damp hair fondly as he got up.

“Oi! Your hands are filthy!” Krem yelled after him.

Out at the spring, Hissrad took the opportunity for a wash himself. It hadn’t been the first thing on his mind lately, but the coating of dirt bothered him as much as it had clearly bothered Krem. Who, incidentally, looked good cleaned up. The bones of his face were even more striking without all the mud. Though Hissrad had been tempted to reach out, and leave a thumb-smear of dirt across the plane of Krem’s cheek.

Krem’s wash couldn’t have been that long ago – his skin had still been slightly dewy, shining bronze in the fading light. If Hissrad had got back a half hour earlier, he might have walked in on it, even. Seen rivulets of water running down Krem’s muscled back, or over the ridges of his clavicle and down the valley of his chest. He felt guilty even imagining it. Krem hid his body, and Hissrad would never truly wish to invade that. Unless he was invited, in which case – he dunked his head in the water to clear it, and tried to focus on rinsing muck out of his cornrows.

 

While Hissrad was gone, Krem struggled through lighting a fire. Just about every movement hurt. But the warmth when the wood finally caught was well worth it. When Hissrad got back, he sat down beside Krem and pulled him into a half-hug, and the warmth of that was worth the pain as well.

They ate together as it darkened, mangoes and other fruits Krem had no names for providing better fare than the leftover fish (which Hissrad had thrown back in the swamp). As they ate, they talked. Hissrad’s voice was friendly and companionable, even with the practical subject matter.

Ribbing aside, the results of his trip were extensive. Hissrad had sighted Seheron’s mountain range, and with their position relative to the sun managed to place them on the map he apparently had memorised. Krem, sadly, did not, and much of their conversation after that was dedicated to him trying to remember bearings and landmarks. Hissrad didn’t know where the Tevinters would make camp, and teamwork was required to find a proper heading, for when they were ready to set off.

Besides the mountains, Hissrad told Krem about the horn-head deserters they’d run across the night before. Tal-Vashoth, they were called; never Qunari. Hissrad’s words painted them as much beasts as army gossip had made the Qunari in Krem’s head. He had to wonder what the truth was. Something told him Hissrad wouldn’t appreciate the question, though.

Though they were still being hunted, there were apparently very few doing the hunting. Hissrad reckoned they couldn’t, therefore, have provoked a very large group. Krem said he hoped so, but the state they were in, even a couple of them would pose a real threat.

Hissrad snorted. “I can take them. They don’t have discipline, Krem, not anymore.”

Krem jabbed Hissrad in the wounded arm, and though he would deny it, Hissrad definitely yelped. “Yeah, totally. You can take them. Because you can swing a hammer right now, and should absolutely just go and fight shit.”

“Shut up.” Hissrad grinned, and rubbed his arm sheepishly. Idiot. How he’d ever got by without Krem there to remind him to take care of himself, only the Maker knew. Or maybe he didn’t, actually, if the Maker didn’t watch people who didn’t worship him. Hissrad shouldered Krem back, drawing him out of his thoughts. “What’re you gonna do? Hit them in the shins with your cane?”

“It’s a crutch, you booby. And I don’t know, it’d be a decent weapon.” Krem leaned over to grab it, forgetting for a moment the twisted-up mess that his whole body had got itself in. He couldn’t quite hide the wince, nor the little grunt of pain, as he straightened back up. “See?” He handed the stick to Hissrad, and tried to smile.

Hissrad barely looked at it, which was just rude. Krem had put quite a lot of work into getting it the right height and shape to fit under his shoulder, and turning part of a blanket into padding. The least Hissrad could do was comment on it, instead of folding his arms and giving him an unimpressed look, reminiscent of a parent waiting for a sticky child to explain themself. “Thought you weren’t going to walk until after I got back, _Cremisius_.”

Krem groaned. “Don’t do that, my sister does that when I’ve been drinking.” Not that he objected to her using his name in that tone, really, when with his mother in her place all he’d get would be _Lucia this_ and _Lucia that_. But he hardly wanted to associate Hissrad with Claudia in his head. That’d just be gross.

Hissrad kept giving him the Look.

Krem shifted and tried not to notice, then broke. “I, er. Might’ve tried something that could maybe be said to be… a bit like walking. Sorry.”

Hissrad sighed, the look replaced with sympathetic amusement. “How badly did you fuck up your leg?” Done with his food, he settled an arm across Krem’s shoulders.

“Well, here’s the weird bit, actually.” Krem finished chewing the last mouthful of his fruit. “It’s not just the bad leg that’s gotten worse. It’s the good one. The until-now good one, anyway.” He struggled to explain the feeling to Hissrad; every muscle in his legs and up through his back cramped, tense and painful and only getting worse.

Hissrad looked like he got it, which put him well ahead of Krem. “It happens sometimes, don’t worry,” he reassured, when Krem voiced his worry. “Your muscles are… well, you know that thing, when you go running – and you feel fine afterwards, but the next day you’re… ugh, I don’t know your words. You get sore? And you’re not stretchy? It’s kind of like that, except it’s because you’re injured. Your body’s panicking. Also, you’re in pain, which doesn’t help with the tension.” He laughed a tiny bit, sympathetically.

Krem blew air up his face in annoyance. “Well, great. Now what do we do?”

“I… didn’t say there wasn’t anything you could do about it.” Hissrad spoke with caution, which didn’t make Krem hopeful at all. “I can help. If you’re alright with it.”

“What d’you mean?”

Hissrad paused, stroking an idle thumb over Krem’s upper arm. “I don’t know what to call any of this in Tevene,” he muttered, clearly embarrassed by his repeated failure with the language. “It’s like… rubbing the muscles to make them relax. It’s okay if you don’t want me to, though,” he added gently. “I don’t get it, but I know your body’s – difficult for you.”

“I kind of like that you don’t get it, honestly,” Krem said. He offered Hissrad a hesitant smile. “And yeah, a massage sounds great. Thank you.” Having Hissrad touch him more at all sounded great. Being closer, warmer, bodies together – shit. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. But he really did hurt, and he was sure he could keep the wayward part of his mind on a firm leash.

Krem winced when Hissrad helped him move his legs to sit over Hissrad’s lap, and winced again when Hissrad laid a hand over his shin. “I’m good, I’m g-aa _aah._ ” The words dissolved into a loud, ecstatic groan as Hissrad began to knead the aching muscle of his left calf.

Shallow care soon deepened, Krem’s muscles so tense they crunched under hard rolls of Hissrad’s fingers. Krem clamped his lips between his teeth, embarrassed at the sounds of relief and pleasure that came with every knot Hissrad smoothed away. Heat bloomed in trails that followed the path of his strong hands. He tried to make conversation, at first, getting Hissrad to tell him trivial details of the scouting, but Krem’s concentration failed him midway through some story about a parrot.

Slowly the focus of Hissrad’s strength moved, calf to ankle, ankle to foot. He worked his way over as much of Krem’s injured leg as he could, and the pain there began to fade too, the warmth spreading through his body overriding all else for a time.

It was good. It was so good, and Krem had no words for it. The relief was one thing; the touch, the closeness, wholly another. He trembled with the power of it. Hissrad’s fingers skating over the underside of his knee made him shiver, eyes tight shut, goose bumps tingling up his back.

Krem had no words, and no reference. Not for this. The odd hug, rarer as he grew older; bumping loving shoulders with his sisters around the work table; Quintus’ hand in his as, with his mother tapping her foot, he accepted the match. He had never known touch like this, neither so good nor so much. He never wanted it to end.

It wasn’t until Hissrad came to his thighs, pushing them gently apart and forcing the pain away, that Krem became properly aware of the warmth between them. Before he could think too far beyond that, “Stop.” He pulled his legs back together, and Hissrad withdrew. “I don’t want – can we do my back now?” It took all his focus to keep his voice from shaking; he hadn’t any left to correct the awkward, stumbling words. So much for that leash.

“Yeah, sure.”

Krem wrapped a blanket around his legs once Hissrad had shifted him off his lap, mumbling something he hardly remembered about being cold. Now that he’d noticed, the heat was about all he could think about. The nerves alone were near enough to make him call the whole thing off, but he coveted Hissrad’s touch too dearly, and it truly was helping with the pain, as much as Krem wanted to put a hand between his legs and sate himself.

 

“This helping?” Hissrad asked, as Krem pivoted clumsily to face away from him.

Krem gave a breathy laugh. “Yeah. Thank you.”

It seemed like Krem was struggling to speak as much as was Hissrad. Might be the tension, in the Vint’s case, though – and Hissrad thought the leg had been bad. Krem’s muscles, stronger than they looked, were fighting him each step of his way towards easing their bloody pain, tensing and jumping in response to his touch.

He’d expected the shoulders to be the seat of Krem’s tension, but they weren’t. Hissrad’s fingers quested lower, until he found the knots at the base of Krem’s spine, and began to make hard circles with his knuckles there. A low grunt of pleasure told Hissrad he’d found the spot. He suddenly felt like he was breathing molasses rather than air. Krem didn’t make the sound again.

Hissrad had shared intimacy like this many times, with many people. Touch was not something his people held back, unlike so many. It formed a bond; it was good for the soul; it was good for the unit. Krem seemed starved of it. He arched against Hissrad’s hands, pressing towards him, at once pliant and held taut, ready to pull away – or holding himself back from something.

Hissrad had admired Krem before now, and admired him still. He was youthful, unweathered, though well and truly into his adult strength. Krem’s was not the body of one who shied from work. Calluses and scars spoke of practicality and perseverance, in spite of the slight bow of his legs from a hungry childhood. Hard muscle showed a hard worker, a good soldier.

Krem began to shiver, more than shudder, when Hissrad’s hands brushed the sides of his hips. Hissrad stopped to ask, “You okay?” in a voice much hoarser than he’d expected it to be.

“Fine,” Krem answered him, the shudder having moved residence to his voice.

There was intimacy of many kinds. Before now, Hissrad had never felt the desire to have them all, at once, with a single person. The idea seemed so strange; like expecting a baker to also swing a sword, be adept with herbs, discuss philosophy, plan cities. All that was too much to place on one person, and led only to exhaustion.

As he worked the knots from Krem’s back, Hissrad thought again of the kiss. Of the seeds of light Krem sowed in his heart. How he longed to feel Krem’s lips again, and felt that his hope and his drive would be restored if only he could.

Perhaps there could be overlap, with the right person. Perhaps it was possible, not to rely on them for everything that a body and a mind and a soul could need, but to share anything that was desired.

“Krem,” Hissrad whispered. He stilled his hands but left them resting on Krem’s back.

Krem gave a soft, “Mm?” of acknowledgment.

The words formed imperfectly, but they were all he had. “When you kissed me.” Some of the tension returned to Krem’s body at that, for which Hissrad felt guilty. “What did you feel? Why did you do it?”

Krem turned with difficulty, looking wary. It was a poorly-constructed look, and Hissrad could easily see what Krem was trying to hide behind it. Fear and longing; sadness and hope. “Dunno.” Krem shrugged, and then scowled as though it would hide the slight wetness in his eyes. “Or maybe I do, alright. I just – you’re – fuck.”

“I’m fuck.”

Krem snorted, and shoved him. “Dickhead.”

 

Hissrad chuckled at the insult, but distantly; Krem knew he was waiting for an answer. Why now? Why’d he have to get all curious right when Krem had warm shudders rolling up his spine from the touch of large hands, and he could feel his smallclothes growing damp, and when fuck it all but Hissrad’s question only reminded Krem that much more of what he wanted?

And it would’ve been easier, even, if that was all there was to it. But when had Cremisius’ life _ever_ been easy?

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to tell you everything I felt. There’s a lot.” The words came of their own accord once he’d started, and Krem wished he could cut the yearning out his voice, but it was this or nothing. And Hissrad had damned well asked. “And maybe some of it’s this damn mess we’re in, and you’re the only bright spot, but you’re really fucking bright. And I… I like you.”

Hissrad’s hand found his, sitting between them. Their fingers tangled as they had that morning, but gripped tighter – Hissrad didn’t want to let go, either. But he looked scared. “Why?”

Maker fucking _damn_ it. Between the ache in his heart and that between his legs, Krem barely had the thoughts to spare for this. “I – shit, Hissrad, I don’t know.” Krem swallowed, eyes flickering. A bit of frustration crept in. “If you want to poke at me, make me feel worse than I do, then fine. Being honest, I’d do it again. If you said you wanted it, wanted me, then I would.”

Hissrad’s expression seemed to crack, and fall away. The skin around his mouth slackened, and Krem thought this was maybe the first time he’d seen what Hissrad was really feeling. And from the look in his clever, beautiful eyes… it might be something like what Krem felt. His stomach lurched at the thought.

“You mean right now?”

“Fucking – yes! I want you so much I don’t know what to do with it, you –” Krem stopped talking, because Hissrad had bent his head and kissed him.

 

Krem’s lips were as soft as Hissrad remembered. They parted against his, and Hissrad couldn’t help the quiver of a gasp when Krem pulled them closer with a hand on Hissrad’s shoulder. It was a slow kiss, and sweet. Krem kissed clumsily, like he was only just learning how, but it still made Hissrad’s heart pound harder than two Tamassrans and a set of cuffs ever could. He felt his own want echoed back at him in every warm rush of Krem’s breath.

Trying to get closer was hardly any easier for how much they both wanted it, and they had to break apart before Krem managed to settle himself across Hissrad’s lap, injured leg well out of harm’s way. They both hesitated then, lips just shy of meeting, Krem’s arm hooked around Hissrad’s neck, Hissrad with hands splayed over Krem’s back. Together, an amber-cast statue in the dying firelight. _Are we really doing this?_

That didn’t last more than a second, though. Krem sealed their lips together again; Hissrad responded with enthusiasm. He felt drunk, lightheaded with desire and joy, smiling when fingers wound into the braids gathered at the nape of his neck. Their lips moved over each other, moulding and breaking apart and meeting again in time to their breaths. This, Hissrad knew. What he didn’t was how someone’s mouth could taste so much like hope.

Krem made a small, pleased sound against his lips, and Hissrad flirted his tongue over Krem’s lip, hoping to draw another. Krem’s mouth opened wider, jaw slack in invitation, and Hissrad pushed further and felt Krem’s groan vibrate through his tongue, his back arch, his fingers clench tight in Hissrad’s hair.

 

Krem had expected the pounding of his heart to ease, if Hissrad were to kiss him back, but now – now he was sure the organ had been replaced entirely, with a lump of lodestone a size too big, that pushed against his ribs and drew him closer to Hissrad as though his skin really were made of iron. He followed willingly.

The kiss went on, and on. Krem felt he did poor at his end, for a while. All he felt didn’t translate neatly into skill. Though Hissrad’s laugh when they clacked teeth was kind, Krem still felt a coil of stinging embarrassment in his gut. Hissrad didn’t laugh at him again. He slowed down, and the movement of his lips took on a guiding feel; he let Krem copy him, showed him with sighs and smiles what was good.

It was half-accident that Hissrad’s top lip caught between his teeth, but when Hissrad’s breath quivered into a groan, Krem felt emboldened to straighten his back and push back at Hissrad’s tongue with his own. Hissrad shuddered, long and slow, crushing Krem to his broad chest. Longing spiked through Krem at the contact, and at the thought that only a shirt and binder separated them now, the blanket long since discarded from his sweating legs. He could take them off, know Hissrad’s skin with his own – no. That was even more stupid than the rest of this.

Instead, he flattened his palm against Hissrad’s side, and felt with his hands what he already knew with his eyes. The puckered scar of a puncture below the ribs was softer than it looked, bumping under his thumb. His fingers slipped in beads of sweat as he tracked down Hissrad’s spine.

“Krem,” Hissrad gasped into his mouth, “Krem, I – can I touch you?” He shifted a hand at Krem’s back to indicate his meaning.

Krem would’ve gnawed his lip if Hissrad wasn’t doing such a mind-blowing job of it for him. Scary thought, but with Hissrad, hardly so much. “You’ll stop if I say, right?” Maker’s blood, he wanted it.

“Of course.”

“Then yeah, _please_.”

The creativity of the kiss was lost in the next minutes, and the coordination. Their minds had shifted to other pursuits, though their mouths still moved lazily together. Hissrad’s hands stayed outside Krem’s clothes, touching and stroking and clutching with no less fervour for their gentleness. His hands shook more than Krem’s did; when Krem opened his eyes he saw Hissrad’s squeezed shut with an intensity of feeling he was sure matched his own. Every touch, every hitch in Hissrad’s breath, sent thrills over Krem’s skin. Between his legs, clamped tight together, he throbbed with heat.

They knocked teeth again, and Krem did laugh that time, a laugh that cracked into a moan when Hissrad traced the inside of his hip. “Fuck!” Hissrad did it again, and Krem jerked, his own muscles unsure if they were trying to get closer or further away. _He_ wasn’t unsure; he wanted closer.

“Krem,” Hissrad said, and then something in Qunlat, and then his name again, voice strained full of need. Across Hissrad’s lap as he was, Krem was hardly unaware of the cock hardening against the side of his thigh. That Hissrad could want him so much elated him, and tormented him. There were so many fucking layers of ‘scary’ here that Krem didn’t know where to start, but as long as Hissrad kept saying his name, his _real_ name, like that, and running his fingers up and down Krem’s leg, Krem could ignore them for all he was worth. Just to have this, for as long as it could last.

Though Hissrad probably wanted more. That thought ground the rest of them to an unpleasant halt. Not that Krem _didn’t_ want more, the aching of his cunt would attest to that, but this wasn’t rutting against his own hand in a darkened barracks full of the grunts of other men doing just the same – Hissrad was with him, and there were things Krem wasn’t sure he would want, of the more category, things that Hissrad would. Somewhere to put his cock, probably. Krem had somewhere, one more somewhere than men did. His stomach twisted at the idea of Hissrad seeing, looking at him and realising he’d been wrong every time he called him a man –

“Hey.” Hissrad’s voice cut off the thought. Krem looked at him, and though Hissrad’s pupils were wide with lust, his gaze was concerned. “Seemed like you went somewhere else, just then. And it wasn’t somewhere nice.” Krem shrugged, shoulders suddenly stiff, and Hissrad ran a soothing hand over them. The shadow of an unpleasant thought passed across his face. “You know we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, right?”

It was the assurance of that, more than anything, that gave Krem the courage to talk. This was Hissrad. Hissrad wouldn’t hurt him. “It wasn’t that.” His body was still very much aroused, urging him to just shut up and kiss Hissrad again, let things go where they would. But the mind that had never sat quite right in the body was afraid. “Or it was, but not – not how you think.” Hissrad waited as Krem took a moment to marshal his thoughts, twisting Hissrad’s braids between nervous fingers. “I’ve not exactly done this before, Hissrad. Andraste’s tits, I want you, but I’m scared.”

He _hated_ admitting he was scared, but Hissrad didn’t laugh at him, or make him feel like he wasn’t really a man, because men weren’t supposed to feel stuff other than ‘sword’ and ‘ale’ and ‘sex’, or something. He curled his arm around Krem, hand cupping his bicep, supporting, but not restricting. “What are you scared of?”

He couldn’t say it and look Hissrad in the eye, so he tucked his face under Hissrad’s chin, and whispered into his neck, “I don’t want you… inside me. But I don’t know what else there is. And I’m scared of you seeing me naked and treating me different.”

“There’s a lot of things. Don’t worry,” Hissrad told him, not making any moves to dislodge Krem from his hiding place. He didn’t even sound disappointed. Krem’s breathing started to ease. “How would I treat you differently?”

“Like a woman.”

“Krem.” Hissrad sounded sad, and deeply emphatic. “I don’t know what it’s like in Tevinter, but where I’m from, men and women and everyone else that your stupid language doesn’t have words for – they’ve got all sorts of bodies. You’re a man, and I’m not gonna question that.”

“Oh.” He could’ve guessed most of that, but he’d needed to hear it. All the problems Krem had with his body, and how people saw it – they weren’t gone, far from it, but Hissrad had proved trustworthy enough that they’d shut up for now. That, and Krem’s body was still putting up a pretty strong argument for caution being screwed up in a ball and lobbed to the wind. He was more able to listen to it now, neither paralysed nor ignoring fear. He kissed under Hissrad’s jaw, and sat up again, feeling his heart begin to beat faster, and his lips turn up in a smile. “Thanks. Sorry.”

Hissrad kissed him, hard enough that Krem could still feel it when he’d pulled away. “Don’t be.” They might’ve been harsh words in another tone, but Krem understood the intention.

He also understood that Hissrad’s body must be putting up the same impatient chant of pulses and tingling as his own, and words and time to say them were getting harder and harder to find. Fears soothed, Krem was feeling pretty daring, so he pulled Hissrad’s head down to murmur in his ear, “So… d’you wanna show me some of those ‘other things’ you mentioned?”

Hissrad nodded. “Do you want to talk about any of it first?” His voice was uneven, but well-held. If Krem wanted to wait, Hissrad would.

Except he didn’t, because dammit, he was nineteen and hadn’t ever kissed someone he wanted before last night. “I’ll stop you if something’s not good,” Krem promised. “Just, please, can we –?” He cut himself off that time, rolling up to kiss Hissrad with a motion that was half-involuntary, and very, very wanted. He was sure he’d never tire of feeling Hissrad kiss him back.

 

Krem’s fear was like a knife in his breast; Hissrad wanted to throttle whoever had instilled it, but more than that, he wanted to show Krem what this could be. What it would be, with him, with them.

The more cautious part of Hissrad’s mind told him that it was a bad idea, to do this with Krem without marking out clear boundaries, safety of the soul and body. The rest of him could hardly bear to wait, and gave in to their shared wants the moment Krem gave his permission. He’d hardly been listening to the cautious part of his mind when he’d kissed Krem in the first place, anyway. It did make it more difficult, though, to know where this was all headed. Hissrad wasn’t a Tamassran; he wasn’t used to leading the way.

But his body and Krem’s seemed to know what they wanted. As they returned to their kissing and wandering hands, Krem started to roll his torso slightly, half-turned to press one side of his chest in long strokes against Hissrad’s. His thigh nudged against Hissrad’s cock with every movement. It wasn’t pressure enough for anything at all beyond reminding him how hard he was, and making his groin throb all the more.

Krem pushed and clutched with no finesse to him. Small grunts weren’t quite muffled in the kiss as he seemed to try and hold himself so close to Hissrad that there’d cease to be a boundary. He needed something, and Hissrad wanted nothing more than to give it to him, whatever it was. “What are you doing?” he asked, pulling Krem nearer with a hand on his thigh. “What do you need?”

It seemed the answer was simply encouragement. “Close your eyes,” he ordered, with the same nervous tremor as those words always carried. Something more, too. Hissrad obeyed, felt Krem moving, twisting – he wasn’t sure which moan belonged to whom when Krem leaned back in, and the bare skin of his chest met Hissrad’s.

It would have made sense, if Hissrad had been capable of thinking about it right then; that Krem’s craving for contact would extend to this. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. Coherent thoughts were for times when you weren’t skin to scorching skin with a maddeningly beautiful Vint.

He kept his eyes shut, as instructed. Krem’s chest was soft, and very ample, for a human. Hissrad wanted to touch, but didn’t dare, for fear of aggravating the pain that they caused Krem. Instead he ran his hands up Krem’s back and felt the muscles cording and jumping there as Krem rolled them together, sweaty enough that they didn’t stick as he did, the ghost of lightning dancing across Hissrad’s ribs whenever Krem’s nipple caught his own.

 

The full-body contact ended pretty quick. Krem’s stomach started to curdle with discomfort, and he pulled his shirt back on, sacrificing one good (amazing) thing so that it wouldn’t ruin all the rest. He left the binder off, though. With how his chest was heaving he felt it just might make him faint.

When he whispered the go-ahead, Hissrad opened his eyes again; lust-dark, they flickered over Krem’s face like a caress, before he tipped his head back and out of reach of another kiss. A warm hand at the back of Krem’s head pulled him forward anyway, and Hissrad murmured, “Kisses can go other places, y’know.”

Krem grinned, and placed a light peck just under Hissrad’s jaw. “Like that, you mean?”

“No, like –” Hissrad snorted breathlessly. “Work with me here, Krem.”

His voice pulled back on the last sound, and he started to try to clarify – only if Krem wanted to, no pressure, all that. Krem shut him up without talking, starting to kiss and suck his way over Hissrad’s neck until Hissrad got the message that it was fucking _fine._ Maker, better than fine, when Hissrad let out a soft moan instead, his hands clutching at the back of Krem’s shirt.

Tentatively, one of Hissrad’s hands started to move down Krem’s body, until it spanned from his hip to partway onto his ass. Krem groaned into Hissrad’s neck. The feeling of his ass being kneaded like that was so unexpectedly good, a dull ache beneath the finer threads of his arousal. “The other one, too,” Krem panted, and Hissrad moved his other hand to the opposite side, thumbs drawing little tingling patterns where they rested. Right then, scraping his teeth along Hissrad’s jawline and hearing him gasp his name, the discomfort was all but gone. Between Hissrad’s hands, his hips hardly seemed wide at all.

He’d overheard a lot of sex, living in an army barracks. What he’d never anticipated, never considered, was how the sounds changed when you were involved. Gasps and soft moans and the wet sounds of heated kissing were beautiful in a way Krem had never experienced, when they were all he could hear and he felt every one pulse inside him. He squeezed his legs tighter involuntarily, and nearly whimpered when that only got him going worse.

Hissrad stroked up and down his body, continuing the massage of earlier as Krem sucked and licked at his neck and shoulder, one hand wrapped around Hissrad’s horn and the other wound loose in his hair. The releasing tension on top of everything else was sensory bliss.

Slowly, as Hissrad worked them over, Krem’s thighs slackened, until they splayed indolently in Hissrad’s lap. He was hyperaware of his cunt between them, of his clit, sitting untouched under his soaking smalls. He whimpered. “Touch me.”

 

 

He hadn’t been sure how to proceed – Krem had asked to be shown, but Hissrad didn’t want to push him. He needed to be so careful with Krem. The man was so fragile and afraid, just taking his first steps here, honouring Hissrad to share that with him, and he wanted to make it good for Krem just as much as he couldn’t think how.

Krem’s plea, though… that made it easy.

Hissrad ran his fingers up the smooth inside of Krem’s thigh, and Krem whispered a moan. His hips twitched up towards the hand when Hissrad did it again, and his legs fell further apart, begging for more. He bumped against Hissrad’s erection, and tongued sloppily over his earlobe, and good as that was neither fed the burn in his belly as much as the heat of Krem’s desire.

 

Krem bowed forward at the first touch of Hissrad’s hand over his smalls. It rested there for a long moment as he adjusted to being touched that way, until he indicated his impatience with an awkward thrust of his hips. A cracked little sound made its way past his lips when Hissrad slid his fingers along the shape of Krem’s cunt, slick with his own wetness, drawing slowly back and forth. Not light enough for teasing; enough to have Krem’s thighs twitching, his eyes squeezed shut and swirls of pleasure brushing through him.

“What do you want me to do?” Hissrad asked in a low voice.

Krem couldn’t answer. “Just – don’t stop.”

Hissrad’s fingers sped up a bit, still just rubbing over Krem’s lips, making no move to explore between them, or dip inside his smallclothes. It was good, all the same. Krem went back to mouthing at Hissrad’s ear, nipping the point of it and drawing a moan.

 

It was all well and good to say don’t stop, but it helped Hissrad none at all. If Krem couldn’t answer, or didn’t know, Hissrad would just show him everything he could, and find out what he liked. Even as he felt he’d be content with just this forever, he also wanted to see Krem arch in the height of his pleasure. The thought sent a deep, warm pulse to the base of his cock.

“How’s this?” Hissrad pushed his fingers down harder as they moved over the shape of Krem’s clit.

Krem whimpered, his mouth slipping on Hissrad’s jaw. “Good, it’s - _good_.” Hissrad did it again and his voice squeaked.

“And this?” He rested a finger either side of Krem’s cunt and squeezed them together, making Krem shudder and push himself forward, seeking more. He forgot to answer, but Hissrad figured the meaning was clear enough. Fuck, he was beautiful like this. He wanted to tell Krem how beautiful he was, but he was afraid of laying a foot wrong in a way he never had been before. He settled for bending his head to bring their lips together again, and tried to tell him that way.

“This?” He pulled his hand away until just the tip of a finger was pressing against Krem’s still-clothed clit, and circled it gently, feeling how stiff with arousal the tiny nub was. Krem’s body rolled up, his injured leg still protectively slack but the rest of him tense and pushing towards Hissrad’s hand, his shivering moan buried in Hissrad’s mouth.

“ _Maker._ ” Krem’s lips parted, inviting Hissrad’s tongue into his mouth. Hissrad complied, never ceasing the motions of his fingers still pressed to Krem’s clit.

 

Krem’s blood simmered beneath his skin with the slow, bright burn of his desire, both worse and better than ever. Every part of him was focused on touch: Hissrad’s arm at his back, supporting him; the sweet slide of their lips, his mouth full of Hissrad’s questing tongue; most and best of all the skilful hand between his legs and the tingling, aching pulses that started and ended in his cunt but touched every nerve in his body all the same.

It was like nothing he could describe, and it only built.

Somewhere in his mind, he wanted to give this same, glorious feeling to Hissrad. Clumsily, Krem palmed Hissrad’s cock through his leggings. Hissrad’s fingers on him faltered.

“Krem, you – you don’t have to,” he mumbled, still kissing. “I’m not… this isn’t a transaction, or something.”

“Shut up,” Krem told him, his voice hoarse but firm. “I want you, too, did you forget?”

Hissrad laughed breathlessly. “Kinda. Fuck, though, if you want to keep doing that, don’t let me stop you.” Krem brushed his hand nervously up and down it, and Hissrad sighed in what was hopefully something good. Hissrad’s fingers, when they started moving on him again, pressed harder, circled a little faster. That was good too, fucking Andraste – !

His smalls killed half the sensation, though, and he wanted Hissrad’s fingers truly on him, finally finding a perfect use for the flesh that had caused more trouble than anything else. Still awkwardly stroking Hissrad’s cock, Krem laid his other hand on Hissrad’s wrist and guided his hand into his smalls.

The first brush of Hissrad’s fingers through his dripping folds and over his clit made him cry out. The sensation fanned out through his groin and pulsed deep inside him, as warm as Hissrad ever was, and as wonderful. Without the fabric of his smalls in the way, it was a new experience again. Krem found the flick of Hissrad’s fingers over his clit almost too much, in a not entirely good way; Hissrad must’ve noticed the pained look on his face, because he started rubbing his thumb over the hood instead. That was good, that was excellent – Krem pulled Hissrad’s swollen lip into his mouth and moaned around it, not sure whose hand had started moving faster first but knowing that it was good on both sides.

Hissrad was panting worse than ever and so was Krem, pleasure winding through him and filling his lungs where he needed air. His cunt seemed to throb in time to the blood pounding in his ears, begging secretly to be filled and fucked, but even without that Krem could feel his orgasm beginning to build. First sparks under his skin, and feeling too hot even half naked in the cold night; then shivering heat pulling in around his groin, tightening muscles that had only just properly relaxed; then a plateau, where it seemed like everything felt as good as it ever _could_ , but on the edge of something even better, if he could only –

“More,” he gasped, with Hissrad’s lip still between his teeth. Hissrad’s thumb sped up, and he rose higher still, with a moan that pulled an answering one from Hissrad and made the cock in his hand twitch. Maker, the thought that Hissrad was hard for him, and him alone, that they were _doing_ this –

One of Hissrad’s fingers pressed lightly over Krem’s entrance, not pushing in but stimulating it all the same, and Krem came with a soft cry, arching into Hissrad’s arms as all the built up pleasure rushed through him, washing away anything else for as long as it lasted. He shuddered, rolling his hips down into Hissrad’s hand, seconds stretching out beyond time. The feeling began to fade, but Hissrad’s still-moving thumb strengthened it again, and Krem’s orgasm waned in fits and wonderful starts, pleasure still lapping at him as it flowed over him and away.

“Hissrad,” he whispered, when it had passed and Hissrad’s hand had stilled. “Hissrad, that was – _fuck_.” Krem leaned up to kiss him, sucking and groaning when Hissrad’s tongue filled his mouth. He wanted to tell Hissrad, with that kiss, how good that had been, how happy he was, how much it had meant and how glad he was that it had been Hissrad.

“ _Krem,_ ” Hissrad responded, wrapping his arms around Krem’s chest and holding him tight, even as his own chest still heaved. “Krem, Krem, shit, Krem, you’re _awesome_.”

He seemed to mean it, with a fervour that surprised Krem, but the word still made him giggle tiredly. “Awesome?”

Hissrad took Krem’s chin in thumb and forefinger, and looked at him with dark eyes and a broad, gentle smile. “Amazing. Awe-inspiring. I could watch you come every day and never get tired of it.” Krem ducked his head, embarrassed, and Hissrad ducked his own to kiss him again. “You’re beautiful, Krem, fuck.”

If it’d been anyone else, the word would’ve dragged Krem back to discomfort with a sharp twist in his gut for good measure. Hissrad, though – Hissrad knew, he saw, and nothing changed. Krem could hear it. Hissrad probably didn’t even know that word was usually used for women, and even in the state he was in, his cock still hard against Krem’s thigh and his breath rasping with lust, he’d used the masculine forms in Tevene. That didn’t happen by accident. Void, Krem still used the wrong ones in his head half the time. Hissrad meant it purely, and honestly, and Krem, half-slumped against the qunari’s massive chest, maybe really did feel a bit beautiful with him.

He dropped a hand to Hissrad’s cock again, wanting to see Hissrad come, but the fabric under his palm felt wet. Confused, he asked, “Did you come?”

“What?” Hissrad seemed to take a moment to focus again, probably because Krem was feeling up his dick. “No, that’s just – like your slick, but different parts.”

“Oh.” Huh. Learned something. Education aside, he might be personally sated, but Hissrad certainly wasn’t, and Krem didn’t think he’d be done until he made Hissrad come like he had. “Can I – fuck, I mean, I don’t know how, but. I want to.” If this only lasted, as it probably would, until day broke, Krem wanted the most out of it that he could have. He’d treasure this first night of his for the rest of his life.

Hissrad pulled him into a kiss. “Yeah. Yes. Shit yes.”

 

He’d meant it, when he’d said he thought he could watch Krem like that every day. The way his brows drew together and the muscles in his thighs jumped and clenched around Hissrad’s hand, the sound he had made as he’d started to come, _vashedan_ , Hissrad wished he could somehow have come at the same time and shared it with Krem. Also, though, he was glad to have had his focus solely on the other man. He didn’t want to miss a thing.

Krem was more pliant when they kissed again, twitching with aftershocks occasionally but otherwise relaxed, floating in the wake of his orgasm. Krem’s smaller body fit against Hissrad’s so well that one might have been the mould for the other. The only downside was the crick in Hissrad’s neck from bending to kiss him for so long, but vashedan _,_ it was so fucking worth it. The twinning of lust and care for another, for _Krem_ , was better than anything he’d ever felt.

Krem’s hand was stroking clumsily at his cock. It felt _so_ good, for all he didn’t know what he was doing, but it wouldn’t be enough to make Hissrad come, even as fantastically turned on as he was. “Can I help?” he asked. Krem nodded, and Hissrad reached down to pull his cock out of his leggings, hissing a bit at the cold air, and sighing with relief and pleasure when Krem covered it with his hands again. “Make a fist,” he murmured, voice catching, helping Krem shift around slightly to better reach with both his hands. Krem closed them both around Hissrad’s cock, just a hair on the right side of too tight, and Hissrad bent forward, groaning into Krem’s hair.

“Is this right?” Krem whispered.

“ _Krem_.” It was about all he could manage. He’d never had lust and love mixed before, and the combination was intoxicating, he could live through every day if this was the end of it. He wrapped his own hand around Krem’s much smaller one, and guided him through moving it up and down, loosening the fingers slightly as he swelled back to full size. Krem’s other hand, at his direction, dropped down to stroke his balls, sword calluses catching at sensitive flesh, all of it so real and present and flawed that Hissrad didn’t know how it could be better.

The way they were sitting, Krem’s thigh rubbed over his cock as well. Hissrad tried to frot against it, but the angle was wrong and he gave up, taking the universe’s reprimand for impatience for what it was. He was achingly hard, though, tingles running up his spine and precome leaking over Krem’s fist, slicking his hesitant way. While Krem jacked him, Hissrad flicked his fingers over his cockhead, and moaned into Krem’s mouth. Krem, though surely not ready to go again, was moaning softly too, rubbing their chests together in a way Hissrad guessed meant _If I had a third hand I’d be touching you all over_ or something like it. He was sorry Krem didn’t; his hands felt amazing wherever they cared to touch him.

Krem’s wrist twitched, and he switched his hands. Those beautiful sword calluses were on his cock now, and Hissrad pushed into them with pleasure building somewhere between the base of his cock and his spine. Softer fingers teased over his balls until they felt too hot, hanging loose but still feeling everything.

“Maker, Hissrad,” Krem moaned into his mouth, and followed the expletive with his tongue. Hissrad met it with his, and Krem licked along its underside, making him shiver and pull Krem closer still. He wished he could move his hips properly like this, rear up and fuck Krem’s fist with long, slow strokes – instead, he guided Krem’s hand in the same, showing him how to twist his wrist as he pulled it back, how to make Hissrad jerk and moan with a finger swirled inside the foreskin.

It wouldn’t take long for Hissrad to finish, not with Krem still touching him, not with the memory of Krem’s orgasm echoing in his ears. Fuck, not if Krem kept pulling on his balls like that. Sparks of pleasure shot up Hissrad’s spine, and then dripped like sweat back down to pool in the base of his cock. “Krem,” he moaned against the man’s lips, repeating his name again and again like a prayer, like worship. “Hah – Krem!”

The hand on his cock stilled. “Sorry,” Krem panted. “Arm’s getting sore, not used to this –”

Hissrad pushed Krem’s arm aside and started to pull on his cock himself, with the hand not still spread over Krem’s back and pulling him close. It wasn’t as good as Krem’s hand, but still better for his – fuck! Krem had given his help again, still playing with his balls, teasing over the head of Hissrad’s cock with his fingers while Hissrad stroked the shaft. He bent his head again, and pressed sucking kisses onto Hissrad’s shoulder.

He groaned and moved his fist faster when Krem’s mouth came to his neck. “Harder,” he begged. “Suck harder, leave a mark.”

Krem obeyed, pulling Hissrad’s flesh into his mouth in stinging, painful pleasure. His fingers never let up, and Hissrad could feel his hips juddering now, straining where they sat in some kind of futile attempt to move. He held Krem closer, and the man’s mouth moved on to set about making another aching bruise just beside the hollow of Hissrad’s throat. He forgot to be careful of his teeth, making Hissrad gasp, and moan his name again.

Pressure built in his cock, pushing out, quivering through his muscles; Hissrad felt like he was only half moving of his own accord, the rest dictated by his body’s own need. A low, wonderful ache curled at the base of his spine, inside him, beneath where Krem’s fingers pushed at the skin behind his balls. “Krem.” The name whispered over his lips, and then he was coming, pulsing wetly over his fist and onto Krem’s fingers, his cock throbbing with pleasure and release, his breath coming in hoarse, ecstatic moans into their kiss.

When his hand slowed, and then stopped, and the last of his orgasm had rolled through him, Hissrad wrapped both arms around Krem and held him as their breathing slowed. Krem hugged him back, his body loose and relaxed, a smile on his lips. Hissrad kissed him on the forehead, and Krem sighed and nuzzled into him. Hissrad wanted to say something but the words wouldn’t come. His heart felt full to overflowing with emotion he had no idea how to express.

 

Now that the obvious, easiest part had passed, all Krem had was a handful of cooling come and a bunch of feelings that hadn’t gone away like he’d half hoped. He didn’t quite know what to do with himself, other than stay right there, and never move, ever. That wasn’t really reasonable, though. “Was it good?” he breathed nervously. He wanted it to have been. Hissrad had seemed to enjoy it, Maker, the way he’d held Krem to him and whimpered through the last moment of his orgasm…

Hissrad paused where he’d been laying kisses over the top of Krem’s head. “So good.” He reached behind him and grabbed a blanket, wiping off their hands and his dick. Krem stuck out his tongue, because it was kind of gross, and Hissrad laughed. “What? There aren’t a lot of cleaning options.” They shared a tired giggle. “What about for you?”

“ _Yes._ ”

They got cold pretty soon after that. Krem threw wood on the fire while Hissrad dragged the rest of the blankets over and spread them out, both of them moving awkwardly, unwilling to break contact. Eventually, Hissrad got them settled in the blankets (sticky one on top), Krem’s legs stretched out and his head resting on his folded arm. Hissrad lay beside him, on his back because of his horns, but still as close together as they could get, Krem’s free arm curled around Hissrad’s face and hand in his hair, Hissrad stroking up and down his back. They’d sleep together again tonight. Krem felt stupidly bereft already at the thought that they’d have to move apart in the morning.

“You need to redo these,” he mumbled sleepily, poking one of Hissrad’s braids. Focusing on something small, because everything else was too big. “The roots are growing in.”

“My combs are back at camp.” Hissrad tucked his arm more securely around Krem. “I’ll do them when I’m home.”

Home. Something different to each of them. Somewhere they couldn’t help but head, and when they got there, they’d part. Krem squeezed his eyes shut. Focusing on the small hadn’t helped. Maker, he didn’t know what to do.

He grabbed Hissrad’s horn and pulled him into a kiss. “Well, you’re not home yet.”

“No. I’m not.” Hissrad kissed him back, languid and searching, devoid of lust and full of something much more frightening. Much sweeter.

Krem fell asleep in Hissrad’s arms, trying to make the most of what they had while they still had it.

Whatever else might come, he was glad it had been Hissrad. There was no one he would rather.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is as yet un-beta'd, because I wanted to post it and felt it was good enough, and I'm going to be really busy over the next little while and otherwise wouldn't have been able to post for ages. there may be some edits in the future though. so if you find any mistakes, please let me know!


	7. Day 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some difficult discussions are had about the future, and the past. 
> 
> Also, you'd think a spy would be good at I Spy. You'd think. Wouldn't you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo boy this one took a while.......... i'm sorry  
> i have been Utter Shit  
> tbh I say that every time and like... between each posting i feel like i'm getting progressively worse honestly
> 
> I really, really hope you like this one
> 
> Oh, cws: Mentions of Krem's deadname, mentions of misgendering, Krem accidentally misgenders himself, dysphoria (Krem's, but it's all from Hissrad's pov), discussion of unwilling marriage and sex that did not come to pass, past suicidal thoughts
> 
> I love you all and your comments have meant so, so much to me, they keep me going, they make me smile on my worst days, thank you so much

Hissrad rose early, long before Krem was awake. He took a moment to just lie there and look. After last night he no longer felt the need to resist his urge to watch Krem – it was hardly the worst crime against the Qun he’d committed – and to learn his face, and the veins in his eyelids, and the rise and fall of his chest, and the pox scars pitting one cheek, until there was nothing more to see and even after that. Hissrad entertained the thought, for a moment, of every morning being like this one. It would be something damn well worth fighting for, to have that.

He kissed Krem lightly on the brow, and stole out to find breakfast. Krem’s nose snuffled, but he didn’t wake up. Good. Sleep was healing, no matter how stubborn you were.

 

Stupid leg. Stupid mess he’d gotten into. Stupid hammer for falling on him. Stupid army. Krem kept up a litany of complaints as he hobbled from one end of the little house to the other, and back again. He spat a gob of chewed-up elfroot into the corner, and crammed his mouth full of leaves again. At least Hissrad had found that on his search for breakfast, though whether it was numbing his leg or just his tongue was up for debate. Maker, it tasted awful.

While Krem tortured himself, Hissrad was readying their things, such as they were. They were moving on again. It was foolhardy to stay in one place for days and days, leaving signs of foraging everywhere. They’d do their best for their injuries, and then go, as far as they could. Over the fire, in a scavenged and rusty pot, Hissrad’s bandages boiled in more elfroot while his wound aired.

Krem kind of wished he’d talk, though.

This morning had been maybe the best of Krem’s life. He’d come to with Hissrad murmuring something in his clear-cut Qunlat that amounted to ‘slugabed’, smiling face close. Krem had kissed him sleepily, then pulled Hissrad back to bed by the neck. Hissrad had fought him, and they’d tussled, and laughed, before the mood settled and left them tucked close together, Krem holding on to Hissrad, happiness welling up inside him and stinging his eyes.

And then they’d risen, and after that, barely touched, and spoken even less. Hissrad had so absorbed himself in his tasks that he rarely even made eye contact. Krem felt the divide between them going back up.

Krem wondered if he’d scared Hissrad somehow. He’d laid his feelings, and his fears, completely bare, and Hissrad had listened but not done the same. Which was fine, obviously. Guy didn’t have to. But maybe he was pulling back now because he knew how strongly Krem felt, and he didn’t feel the same. But there was also that final kiss, and the sweetness of the morning; Krem didn’t think those things would’ve been if Hissrad was just in it for the sex.

Krem had never imagined he’d be free to experience something like last night. At his worst, deep in his cups, he’d thought he’d die a virgin, for the sake of living and being known as he was. Better no sex at all than to lie back and pretend that the legs he spread weren’t his own.

And then he’d met Hissrad, and all of that had changed. It’d been… wonderful.

He’d figured all along that things wouldn’t last much longer than the darkness. He’d accepted it, he’d planned for it. Freedom was never a total thing. Not for anyone, and Krem less than most. Always there were sacrifices. Krem was well used to the idea that nothing good ever lasted. And now, against all his better instincts, he was arguing with himself for the idea that they weren’t over. Everything always came with a price; maybe the ache in his chest was the price for this.

Distracted, Krem stepped wrong with his good foot, and crumpled to the floor, barely protecting his leg. “Fuck!” he gasped, through teeth gritted against the pain. Hissrad was at his side immediately, but Krem waved off the attempts to help. “No, no. I’ve got to – _shit_ – I’ve got to do this on my own. I’ll never make it back if I can’t.”

Hissrad hovered anyway. Helpful, kind, handsome _bastard_. Krem glanced at his face once he was standing again, just as Hissrad opened his mouth. “You’re really doing this?” His concerned frown deepened.

Krem rolled his eyes, and took another step. “Got a better idea?” It wasn’t like he didn’t have a choice. But his other choice was die in the forest, unable to feed himself on a fucked leg. Prices, counterbalances – one freedom always cost another.

Hissrad was silent for a moment, then took a steadying breath. “Join the Qun.”

Krem’s stomach clenched. He wanted to laugh, or maybe cry. Hissrad didn’t even _believe_ in freedom, the poor bastard, and yet around him he’d created a space where Krem was free. To be his whole self, nothing patchwork, false or omitted. Able to make his own decisions, within the limits of their situation. And Hissrad still wanted him to give that up. “I already answered that one. You _promised_.”

“Wherever you want to go, yeah. If you decide that’s the Qun…” Hissrad held out a steadying hand when Krem wobbled. “Our healers could save your leg just as well as a ‘Vint mage. You wouldn’t have to hide there. You’d never go hungry. Krem, it’s a good –”

“As long as I follow my orders, right, Hissrad?” he gritted out. “I’ll not go hungry, but what about my sisters? My mother? How can you expect me to – to hand over all my own decisions, forever? I can’t – it’s not any better than slavery. Not to me. At least this way everything’s my choice.”

“Your _death_ would’ve been your choice,” Hissrad reminded him quietly. “You were planning for it. Isn’t the Qun better?”

“Only sort of planning,” Krem countered. Really only sort of, Maker damn it. And he didn’t want to die _anymore_ , or anything. “And no. At least it would’ve been a free death.” And one that’d have taken care of his family.

Hissrad stepped in front of him, forcing Krem to halt and look him in the eye. He looked achingly sad, and as if Krem’s answer might be the only thing to change that. Krem turned away. “Krem, listen –”

“No, you listen,” he said. “I’ve fought for this life.” Whatever he’d been planning to say next vanished as a horrible thought emerged. “Was that what last night was?” Krem couldn’t tell what his throat was trying to do, and battled it to speak. “Trying to draw me in, convince me to convert?” Stupid, _stupid_ , everything always had a motive –

“What? Krem, no!” Hissrad reached for him. Krem meant to push him away, but hugged him instead. “If anyone back home ever found out about that, I’d be re-educated.”

“Then why?” Krem demanded, snarling into Hissrad’s chest. “Why do it if you believe in that shit so much? Why do you want me to give up the chance of anything like that ever again?!”

Hissrad’s arms tightened around him, pulling Krem closer to his chest. “Because I don’t want to say goodbye to you!” he said into Krem’s hair.

The anger went right out of him at that. “Oh.” He nearly dropped the crutch to hug Hissrad with both arms. But then he’d fall, and the hug would break. But Hissrad didn’t – he just – Krem breathed a very small laugh. “You’re shit at talking about your feelings, you know.”

“Only when it matters.” Hissrad kissed Krem’s hair, and Krem could feel him smiling. “How about I try again. Cremisius, you’re _awesome_.” Krem laughed and punched him in the arm. “You make me feel like there’s a tomorrow, and one after that. And I want to see you smile on every single one of them.”

Krem buried his face in Hissrad’s chest, his heart pounding fit to burst, exulting. It wasn’t over, it _wasn’t_. Hissrad felt the same on more things than just ‘you’re really hot’. “I don’t want to say goodbye either.” It bubbled out of his throat with all the joy of a tear-choked laugh. He felt so much, in that moment. Things he wasn’t sure he could name, things he’d certainly thought he’d never feel.

Maker fucking shit, was it love?

Hissrad pulled him back, and then into a kiss that was only an approximation of one, for how they were both smiling.

“So… you’ll come back with me?”

Fuck.

 

Krem pulled back from the kiss slowly, staring down at his hand splayed on Hissrad’s chest. He didn’t look so happy anymore. “I don’t _want_ to say goodbye, Hissrad.” Suddenly, Hissrad knew what was coming. “But I’m gonna. My family, and - the Qun’s just not for me.”

Hissrad forced what he knew was a shit excuse for a smile. He’d promised. It was Krem’s choice. “Okay. I – okay.” His voice wobbled a bit. There wasn’t another option for them to stay together, really. It wasn’t like Hissrad could up and join the Tevinter army, even if the thought of it didn’t grate against every single ideal he held dear.

“Until then, though…” Krem bit his lip, finger tracing little patterns over one of Hissrad’s scars. “I mean, it’ll take a little bit to get anywhere, and –” as quickly as he was talking, he seemed to be having trouble getting the words out.

“We share what we can?” Hissrad finished. In the time they had. Maybe knowing there’d be an end would make the time together sweeter, or something. He tried to convince himself of that, anyway. Didn’t exactly work. But the thought was better than nothing, better than ending it now. “I’d like that.”

Krem’s smile was about as convincingly happy as Hissrad’s. “So would I.” He leaned up to kiss Hissrad, crushing their faces together like that would make the one kiss count for a thousand.

Loathe as he was, Hissrad had to be the one to end it. Krem’s leg had to be hurting him, and they had things to do, they had to move. “There’ll be time when we make camp tonight,” he promised, when Krem whined. “For whatever you want.”

Krem kept up his walking, and Hissrad sat, cleaning the Beresaad weapons while his bandages dried. With everything else and his arm fucked now, he’d have to leave most of them here, but he wasn’t going to do that without taking care of them first. Whenever Krem passed him on his circuit around the room, Hissrad reached up to brush their fingers together. Krem smiled every time.

 

 

“I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with T.”

“Is it a tree.”

“Yep! Your turn.”

Krem had spent most of their previous travels asleep, or scared for his life, and now that he wasn’t either and was instead just slung over Hissrad’s good shoulder like a sack of rice, he was bored as fucking shit. Walking was at least painful, and gave him something to focus on, but he couldn’t do that all the time. Hissrad was carrying him now so he could have a rest. He’d tried teaching Hissrad to play “I spy” with him, but he was absolute shit at it. And of course also thought it was great fun, so now they had to play.

“I spy, with my little eye,” Krem droned, head propped on an elbow resting on Hissrad’s back, “something beginning with A.”

“A… it’s not ‘a something’, is it? A bee?”

“Nope.”

“Aloe?”

“Nope.”

“Agapanthus?”

“Nope. …What the fuck is an agapanthus?”

“These things, look.” Hissrad bent suddenly, then held his arm around behind him to give Krem a small, blue flower. “They’re pretty.”

Krem smiled, then snorted.

“Whaat?”

“Nothing, nothing.” He tucked the flower behind his ear, still grinning. “Just – I’ve never liked being given flowers before. But that was nice.” It was, as everything seemed to be, different with Hissrad.

Hissrad rubbed Krem’s side with the hand he was holding him with. “Apricot.”

“It’s not a plant,” Krem sang, laughing. He was proud of this one.

Hissrad was silent for a while, then groaned. “Ugh. I give up. You’re _good_ at this.”

“Siblings. Makes all the difference.” Alright, it was kind of nice, chatting and laughing and doing something _light_ with Hissrad. “Your turn, then.”

“Hey!” Hissrad pretended to shake him. “No way, you have to tell me now.”

Krem smothered a laugh in Hissrad’s back. “Fine, fine, fasta vass. It’s ‘ass’. Yours.”

Hissrad’s whole body shook with giggles. “That doesn’t count, I can’t see my own ass!”

“Does too count, Hissrad. It’s _I_ spy, not _you_ spy. _And_ you can see my ass.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Hissrad sounded a bit shy suddenly. “It’s a nice ass.”

Fighting a blush, Krem mumbled, “You too, shithead.” That was fucking adorable, though. Hissrad didn’t seem the type to get bashful over complimenting an ass. Especially with how great his own was...

 

Krem insisted on walking again before long. Hissrad wanted to try and talk him out of it, but if Krem was going to make it back to his damn army, he did need the practice. And over more than a smooth dirt floor, too. But that didn’t mean it didn’t suck. Every little sound of pain as he hobbled over roots, and tripped in sucking mud, made Hissrad want to reach out to him. But he didn’t. Not with more than a comforting hand on Krem’s shoulder, anyway.

The mountains were in view over the trees now. Hissrad picked one, and started, “I spy, with my little –”

“Oh, _shut up_ , would you?” Krem snapped suddenly. He stopped dead, a hand over his mouth and eyes closed. “Sorry. I’m just sick of that fucking game.”

Sure, that was all it was. Krem had just gotten bored, and spoken with more venom in his voice than Hissrad had heard since they met. He stopped too, and wrapped an arm around Krem. “The leg’s bothering you that bad?”

“Pff.” He shouldered Hissrad half-heartedly. “How do you always know?” Before Hissrad could answer, he’d turned his face into Hissrad’s chest, and mumbled, “Yeah. It’s fucking agony. Don’t think that’s so worrying, though – I mean, it did get _really_ fucked up. Just gotta push through it.”

They should stop soon, probably. But they’d barely covered any distance, and Hissrad at least wanted to get them to the outskirts of the swamp, so they weren’t sleeping in mud. “Anything I can do to help? Are you out of elfroot?”

He patted one of his belt pouches. “No, still got that.” Krem’s voice was small. “Could you just… talk, maybe? About anything. Help me take my mind off it.”

About what? Hissrad opened his mouth, but he wasn’t sure Krem had the presence of mind right now to come up with a topic for him. “Sure, Krem. Sure I can.”

“Thanks.” Barely turning his head, Krem kissed him on the arm. “Okay, okay, I’m good. Let’s keep moving.”

Hissrad racked his brains for a topic. Nothing immediately jumped out at him – lessons? More stories about his childhood? He remembered being sick once, confined to bed for a whole week. He’d gotten bored as _shit_ , started throwing things on the second day. After that, one of the younger Tamassrans still in training had sat with him, let him prod at her cheeks and the prickly beard that was starting to come in, and told him histories of the Qun. But not in a lessons way, more like proper stories. They’d been exciting, and little Ashkaari had almost been sad when he got better and story time was back to lessons again. Maybe Krem would like one of those.

“Have you ever heard the story of Ashkaari Koslun, Krem?”

 

Krem collapsed with a groan of relief. Shit, that was pathetic. He’d survived army training, and now a few miles on a broken leg and he was half-dead. Hissrad would be feeding him out of his hand next. He laughed a bit when Hissrad handed him a mango. Hissrad gave him a questioning look, and Krem shook his head, still smiling. “Nothing. It’s just… kind of funny. Who’d’ve thought lost in the Seheron jungle would be where I’d go soft.”

“Soft?”

“Weak. Lazy.” Krem waved a hand. “Need you to feed me, and carry me, and help me take a piss.”

“Hey.” Hissrad leaned forward, cupping Krem’s cheek to force him to look Hissrad in the eye. That had to be turning into a habit by now. “You’re injured, Krem. Dunno what they teach you in Tevinter, but where I’m from, it’s stupid to expect _injured people_ to meet healthy standards. And, I mean, I already knew you were a bit of an idiot –”

Krem smiled and pushed him. “No more than _you_. And… alright. Got it. Sorry, I get a bit down on myself sometimes.”

Hissrad waggled his eyebrows. “Now _that’s_ impressive. Takes some flexibility to do that!” When Krem just blinked, he sighed. “Down on yourself – like, you’re _going_ down on yourself, as in your mouth on your own bits.”

“Fucking void, Hissrad,” Krem giggled tiredly, nearly dripping mango down his chin, his insecurities fading away for now. The pain in his leg was still there, though. Throbbing. “No one can _actually_ do that.” Seemed like people boasted about that on Par Vollen just as much as in Tevinter.

Hissrad winked. It looked good, even with the comical way he was leering. “Well, actually –”

“No!” Krem held up a hand to stop him. “No, you’re making it up.”

Hissrad pulled Krem closer to him, the rumble of his laugh vibrating through Krem’s chest too. They were huddled together under a tree, wrapped in blankets, not wanting to risk a fire out where it could be seen. Wasn’t nearly dark enough to need a fire yet, though. They hadn’t walked long. “You’ve got to at least let me tell the story before you go accusing me of being a liar.”

Krem folded the arm not occupied with mango, doing his best to look sceptical. He wasn’t sure it worked. “Alright then.”

“Only dwarf I’ve ever met. Viddathari – uh, convert – Ben-Hassrath I worked with once. They didn’t visit the Tamassrans at all, one night we were eating together, job well done. I ask, ‘How come you don’t ever have sex?’, they tell me, ‘No one can lick my cunt like I can.’ So I say, ‘Bullshit.’” Hissrad paused dramatically. Krem knew it was for effect, but it still worked. “And they hook their legs behind their head right there, flip over, and their whole face is up against their crotch before I know it!”

“Maker’s fucking _ass_ ,” Krem marvelled. It was either true, or Hissrad was a damn convincing liar. That was a lot of details to come up with on the fly. “Hold on.” There _was_ a hole in the story. “I thought the Tamassrans were like, your mothers.”

Hissrad wobbled a hand. “Some of them raise the children, yeah. But they’re… they take care of a lot of needs. Spiritual ones, and physical ones. Not all the same people for everything, obviously. No one’s allowed to visit a Tamassran for sex that helped to raise them, too much potential for harmful power imbalance. But other than that… yeah.” He shrugged.

“That sounds pretty great.” One hell of a useful system to have in place. And it sounded like Tamassrans were figures of respect, not like sex workers in Tevinter, even though they were just as necessary. “So anyone who doesn’t have someone can just go see them instead?”

“Have someone?”

“Like, a lover, a wife, whatever.”

Hissrad shook his head slowly. “Must’ve missed something, explaining all this. We don’t have that sort of thing, Krem. Qunari have friends, but we don’t have sex with each other. Just for breeding, and the Tamassrans. That’s why – when you kissed me, I –” Hissrad turned away slightly, looking sheepish. A few of the pieces of Hissrad’s weird reaction that night fell into place. Krem figured he would’ve been confused, too, if he’d never seen romance before. Not that it was particularly romantic, what with the mud and all, but – oh, Maferath’s pants, whatever. No wonder Hissrad didn’t know what he was doing with this, though.

“I didn’t make you uncomfortable, did I?”

“No.” The word was torn between a sigh and a huff of laughter. “Definitely not.”

Krem rested his head on Hissrad’s shoulder, taking another bite of the mango. Without a fire to stare into, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his eyes; staring into the dark jungle felt at odds with the warm mood, and looking down at his leg just reminded him how much it was hurting. He closed them in the end. “You said last night, there were lots of things we could do.” The conversation being on sex had turned Krem’s mind to it again, and he was curious. “But we didn’t end up doing a lot of talking.” They shared a small laugh that regretted nothing. “So can we talk now?”

“Sure. Can I ask how much you know, first?” Hissrad’s tone was easy. Krem got the impression Hissrad was trying not to seem threatening, despite the massive difference in experience. He appreciated it.

“Uh, fuckall?” Krem grinned, then went on, “Really not much. Saw a lot, with the sex workers other guys kept bringing into the barracks. Before I got – um,” _betrothed_ , “my Mater told me it hurts, for the woman – I mean, she meant me, but. And it’s a burden to bear. But I paid a worker a handful of copper once, when she was leaving, and asked, and she said, ‘not if you do it right.’” And then she’d patted him on the cheek.

He fidgeted with the mango in his hands, picking off bits of skin, fidgeting at the same time with the idea of telling Hissrad more. He’d tried it with his fingers, after that, and it hadn’t hurt at all. Instead, it’d been a confusing mix of _fuckyesgood_ and the stomach-turning wrongness Krem had come to associate with his gender crap. He kind of wanted to change that, if he could, though. “… Still not really sure what she meant.” _Coward_.

Even through his closed lids, Krem felt like he could see the expression on Hissrad’s face. The same one he always made, the one that meant, _fucking crazy Vints and their shit_. Like he was talking to a very drunk person, Hissrad said slowly, “She _meant_ it didn’t hurt if you _do it right_.”

Krem shrugged. “What’s ‘doing it right’, though?”

“Being relaxed. Having fun with it, wanting it. Making sure everything’s really slick. Practice helps, too.”

“Have you done it right?”

Hissrad nodded. “Done, been done to – once both, at the same time! Now that was something…”

Krem opened his eyes and sat back to stare at Hissrad. Yeah, nope, still the same. Tall as fuck, muscly and scarred, just about the manliest thing Krem had ever seen. High ranked in whatever the fuck his bit of the Qun was, and he’d – “You’ve _bottomed_?”

“… Yeah?”

 

He must’ve been getting used to dealing with the cultural differences, or something, because Krem just processed that tidily away with a thoughtful look. “Huh. So it’s not related to gender so much for you guys?”

“It is for you?” Hissrad laughed. “That’s ridiculous. No, of course it’s not!” How in the fuck could it be related to gender? “Unless your genders are ‘likes to limit themself from shit that feels good’ and ‘wants a really fucking great orgasm’, or something.”

Krem didn’t answer for a while, beyond another, “Huh.”

Hissrad sat quiet, happy to let Krem turn it all over in his head. On his own side, he was getting used to how fucked over in the head Krem had gotten from Tevinter’s weird ideas. He wondered why they didn’t teach about this crap in training. Personally, hearing it all had just made him more convinced that Tevinter was a harmful institution that’d be better off gone. Except for the bit about… well, what he’d been learning from Krem, in return. Lovers, and what that really _meant_.

“So, anyway… you were gonna tell me what else we could do?” Krem had his head tucked down, so Hissrad couldn’t see his face, but his voice sounded equal parts nervous and breathy.

“Yeah.” Hissrad ran his hand down Krem’s back, settling it around his hip. “Now, look, I want to preface this with we don’t have to do all this – or _any_ of it.”

Krem let out a small irritated sigh. “Yeah, yeah, got it –”

“Krem, please, this is important. I really don’t want you to feel like there’s anything you have to do for me, or that you have to do it all at once, or that you’ve got anything to prove.” The Tamassrans gave people a similar talk, their first few times visiting for sex. They were doing this all kinds of wrong according to the Qun, but Hissrad figured the spirit of the talk was still a good idea.

There was silence for a few seconds. Krem seemed to be actually processing Hissrad’s words at last. “Okay,” he said eventually. “Okay. Got it. Same to you, then.” He lifted his chin, smiling wryly up at Hissrad. “Don’t just do what I want, either, big man. ‘cause I reckon you didn’t think of that.”

Not quite in those words, but it was a good reminder to not make this all about Krem. “Got it.”

Krem nuzzled his face up, pressing kisses under Hissrad’s jaw. “Start talking.”

“Mmm. Alright. Well, you’ve had my fingers, you know how that goes. There’s no lube, so ass stuff is out – and you don’t want anything in your cunt, right?”

Krem hesitated. “No, I don’t think so.”

Krem didn’t really seem sure on that no, if Hissrad read him right. He seemed… torn. But a no was a no. “Okay. Then there’s my mouth, if that’s something you want.”

“What about stuff I can do to you?”

“Same again, really. Fingers, or mouth.”

“No, but.” Krem made a frustrated noise, halting. “What would – any of that. What would it involve?”

“Oh?” What did he mean? Seemed pretty self-explanatory, really, unless… a slow smile spread over Hissrad’s face, equal parts charmed and wicked. “ _Oh_. You want the details, huh? Want me to tell you all about what I could do to you, before I – ngh.”

“Shut up.” Krem soothed over the bite on Hissrad’s neck with his lips, and Hissrad could hear the blush in his very voice when he mumbled, “Yeah. I do. Shut the fuck _up_.”

“Think you’re asking for the opposite, here, Krem,” Hissrad teased. But the blankets around them were growing rather warm, and it sure wasn’t just Krem giving off all that heat; Hissrad liked the idea just as much as he did. “I could take it slow, like we didn’t last night. Spend whole minutes on just your neck. Fingers are good, but I want to taste you, all of you, I want to know what you do when I lick your hip, want to feel how strong your thighs can squeeze around my face.”

Krem, who had gone still as Hissrad talked, let out a small whimper.

“You like that thought?” The words weren’t coming all smooth like he wanted them to.  He had the ideas, but translating them into Tevene and then hoping they still sounded good was _hard_. “Holding my head there while I suck you?”

Krem whined, and nodded. “Yeah. But the – what you said about _strong_. That was nice.”

Hissrad flattened his palm over Krem’s abdomen. The muscles jumped and tensed when Krem gasped. “You must’ve worked hard for this.” Krem nodded. “I know how strong you are, mind and body. You pushed yourself and it has fucking paid off, you’re strong and that’s _gorgeous_. I want to see every part of you, feel you flex under my lips when I’ve kissed you a hundred times and you’re going mad wanting more.”

“And you’d really go down on me?”

“Fuck _yes_ I would. If you want that.”

Krem breathed a string of affirmatives into the suck-mark forming on Hissrad’s neck, and Hissrad kept talking. “I bet you’d taste amazing, Krem. Salty and sweaty, dripping with how much you want it. And your clit is just the perfect size to do all kinds of fancy shit with my tongue.”

“Maker,” Krem whispered. One of his knees bumped into Hissrad’s as his legs fell slightly apart. Hissrad wasn’t even sure if Krem had noticed.

He bent to kiss him, tilting Krem’s chin back with a finger; before their lips had even touched, Krem had moaned. “Is that good?” Hissrad breathed into Krem’s mouth, a lot more confidently than he felt. “When I move you where I want you, no decisions for you to make, just pleasure.”

“Yeah,” Krem gulped, or maybe gasped. “I – I don’t – it’s scary. But when you’re in charge I don’t need to be afraid.”

Hissrad had guessed as much. He felt the same way with the Tamassrans. He didn’t have to worry, just trust. But being the one in charge? Koslun, that was so much more frightening. He’d never been trained for this; he knew how much a badly-trained Tamassran could mess up a visitor, and he wasn’t even a Tamassran at _all_. How was he supposed to do this?

His lips moved with Krem’s while he thought, all the same. They’d done fine together last night, and surely if he were careful… but it was huge, he hadn’t realised how monumental until later, when the heat of the moment was gone. It felt like the most important, most precious thing he’d ever do. Hissrad’s voice was very soft, quivering slightly, when he asked, “Do you trust me that much, Krem?”

Brown eyes like rich earth opened and met his, focusing through the glaze, and Hissrad knew that Krem understood. This meant just as much to him. “Yeah.”

 

“If you want me to stop, say,” Hissrad said, his gaze steady. “I will. No questions asked.”

Krem nodded. He didn’t – Maker, he didn’t want to stop. But he knew he might later, so he wrapped the words in the surety of Hissrad’s eyes, convincing himself ahead of time it’d be alright. “Got it. Same to you.”

A sigh, and a smile of acknowledgement. “You’re so good, Krem. So amazing.” He rubbed his thumb back and forth across Krem’s belly. Krem shivered with heat. “You want me to keep talking?”

The word cracked slightly. “ _Please_.”

He thought Hissrad would just keep going the way he had been, but Hissrad lifted Krem into his lap, setting his mouth near Krem’s ear and Krem’s leg against his cock, the same as the night before. “Fuck, having you like this is good,” he murmured, trailing his hand across the top of Krem’s pants now. Krem gasped and leaned up to keep kissing Hissrad’s neck. “I can’t forget anything. I can feel how hot your cunt is, perched on my leg like that, I can feel every time you twitch and your leg bumps my cock. You want this so bad, huh?” Two fingers slipped into Krem’s pants and he whined and rutted forward, but they settled just either side of his cunt, just firm enough to tease.

“Yeah, you do,” Hissrad went on. “Look at you, _shit_. You’re so desperate for it already. I bet you’re wet. _Don’t move_.” He pushed his fingers down and slid them across the centre of Krem’s cunt.

“Kaffas!” Krem wrapped an arm around Hissrad’s neck for something to hold onto, and buried his face there. He doubted he would’ve moved, but Hissrad’s order made it harder, brought the motions of his body into sharp relief; there was pleasure, too, in obeying it.

“Yeah, you _are_.” Hissrad withdrew. His fingers left a slick trail over Krem’s hipbone that Krem was aware of long after Hissrad’s fingers had passed on. His chest felt too tight, his eyes blurry and unwilling to open. “You’re so good for me, Krem, holding still like that, like I said. You want to demand, don’t you? You want to tell me to get on with it, but you’re waiting. Why’s that?”

It took Krem a couple of seconds to find his answer. “You know what you’re doing. I want – I want you to make it good, I know you will.” His chest heaved by the time he was done. That admission was somehow nearly as hard as telling Hissrad he cared for him. Giving up control like this – Maker. It was hard. It was so, so good.

“What if I tease you for _ages_ , though, Krem?” Hissrad asked. “What if I don’t give you what you want for hours, what if I make you beg for it?”

Krem shook his head sharply. “Don’t want to beg.”

“Alright. And the rest of it?”

“Don’t mind.” Krem rested his other hand on Hissrad’s cock, feeling pleasure of his own shoot through him at how it filled to his touch. “’s long as you don’t.”

Hissrad laughed, the low sound rumbling between them. “Who says I’m gonna wait for you?” He shifted his leg, so that Krem slipped and his hand tightened reflexively around Hissrad’s cock. Hissrad groaned. “Yeah, like that. You wanna know what I’m thinking, Krem?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m thinking I want your mouth.” Krem said nothing, and Hissrad must’ve thought he didn’t want it, rather than being struck _dumb_ with how much he did. “You can say no – it’ll be a bit awkward, anyway –”

“Fuck _yes_.” Krem hauled Hissrad down into a sloppy kiss. “Only – how? I can’t exactly kneel, not with –” he gestured to his injured leg. He could still feel it, the ache under the low burn of arousal.

“There’s a few options.” The confidence, and eagerness, had returned to Hissrad’s voice with Krem’s approval. “You could kind of - curl up, your legs out the way and your head in my lap. It’d give you a bit more control if you’re nervous, you’d be doing all the moving, bobbing your head on my cock.” Krem groaned a little bit at the image. “Or – you can lie on your good side, right?”

Krem nodded.

“You could lie on your side, and me on mine – as much as I can,” he rapped on his horns with a knuckle, “same as we do when we sleep, but with your face a whole lot _lower_.” He put a hand over Krem’s, rubbing it down onto his crotch. “I’d be able to move, that way, and so would you, get a rhythm going, rolling my hips against you. Maybe I’d tell you to get a hand on yourself, match my pace,” his hand cupped over Krem’s cunt, kneading softly, and Krem bucked up helplessly, “tease yourself while I came down your throat.

“Or you could lie on your back, let me do the kneeling. Right over your face, my balls resting on your chin, your lips around my cock.” He pushed Krem’s hand down on himself again. “I’d ride you like that, Krem. You wouldn’t even have to move, it’d be all up to me.”

“That one,” Krem gasped, breathless, wanting it to be his last decision for a while, wanting Hissrad to take him over wholly. “Maker, that one, I want –”

Hissrad let out a shuddering moan. “ _Fuck_ , Krem, you’re so good for me. Alright, lie down, I’ll get –” he started messing around out of Krem’s sight, as Krem lay on the ground, chest heaving and mind going wild with anticipation.

Hands slipped folded blankets under his head, cushioning it and propping it up, then smoothed over his face. Another blanket was spread over his legs. “Krem,” said Hissrad’s soft voice. “Open your eyes.”

It was the first time he’d seen Hissrad naked. Krem damned the growing darkness, that stopped him seeing as much as he wanted, but it was still a beautiful sight. The moonlight through the trees dappled on Hissrad’s grey skin, turning it silver as he knelt above Krem. He made to move in and Krem held up a hand, stopping him. “Want to look at you,” he whispered.

Hissrad’s legs were scarred, too, their dusting of dark hair framing slashes and puckers, relics of battle. Each muscular thigh was thicker than Krem’s head, and between them, jutting proud though it was, Hissrad’s cock looked oddly small. He hadn’t really looked at it last night, too busy getting his hands on every part of Hissrad he could reach; if he’d thought about it, Krem would’ve imagined that what he held in his hand was proportional with the rest of Hissrad’s massive body, but it wasn’t. Average human size, maybe longer, but not thick. Dwarfed by the rest of Hissrad’s body.

Krem reached out, running his own dark hand over Hissrad’s hipbone, bronze and silver together. He ran his thumb down Hissrad’s dick, watched it bob and Hissrad jerk in response. “And you call me beautiful.” His cunt ached a little, imagining that inside him, filling him just enough. His mouth would do, though, Maker. It definitely would.

Hissrad grinned, wide and a little bashful. “I know it’s – kind of small, Krem, you don’t have to lie.”

Krem gestured to himself. “I’m small all over. It’s perfect, Hissrad. D’you think it’d fit in my mouth if it was bigger?”

“Hadn’t thought of that.” Hissrad’s smile grew. “Best reason I’ve heard yet to like it. Shit, Krem, can I –”

“Yeah.” Krem swallowed the spit pooling in his mouth, pushing himself up a little. “C’mon, Hissrad, give it to me, please.” The phrase felt a little awkward, and he nearly laughed, but its effect on Hissrad was worth it.

Hissrad moaned and rose up on his knees, positioning himself over Krem. The last Krem saw of his face, his eyelids were fluttering, smile gone and lips parted slightly. Then the rest of his body loomed, until Krem’s eyes were level with his belly and his cock was nearly – _nearly_ , but not quite – touching Krem’s lips. “Hit me on the leg to say stop, ‘kay?” Hissrad’s voice shook. Krem could only imagine how hard it was to hold himself back like this.

“Got it. Hissrad, c’mon, can I –” all the breath rushed out of him when Hissrad’s hand wove into his hair.

“Yeah, Krem.” His hips dropped slightly, and at last, his cock rested where Krem wanted it most. He darted his tongue out, tasting bitter salt, and Hissrad moaned. “Open up. Watch your teeth.” Krem opened, guiding the head of Hissrad’s cock into his mouth until it rested heavy and full on his tongue. Remembering what Hissrad had said he’d do to Krem’s clit – _“All kinds of fancy shit with my tongue”_ – Krem swirled his own, tasting Hissrad, feeling him.

“Fuck, that’s good,” Hissrad breathed, his hand tightening in Krem’s hair. He pulled his hips back slightly, and then pushed them forward, cock sliding between Krem’s lips. “Again.”

Krem obeyed gladly, furling his lips over his teeth and experimenting with his tongue as Hissrad began to move his hips back and forth. He pushed up a bit, as Hissrad thrust down, urging him deeper, the head of Hissrad’s cock bumping the back of his throat. It hurt a bit, nearly made him gag; it was so fucking good. He didn’t want it further, didn’t want to choke, but the idea that Hissrad _could_ do that to him, the feeling of too much in his mouth and fullness in his throat, _Andraste_. Krem did it again, and this time moaned around Hissrad’s cock.

“ _Shit_.” Hissrad’s hips jerked, a bead of salt leaking into Krem’s mouth. Precome, like Krem had. “Oh, shit, I can feel it in my cock when you do that.”

They spent some time adjusting to it, experimenting. Hissrad couldn’t hold himself up on his injured arm, but that left it free to stroke Krem’s hair and face. Krem got more adventurous and, as he did, more sloppy. A string of drool escaped the corner of his mouth and ran down his cheek. Hissrad laughed when his thumb found it, and Krem, embarrassed, slurped and tried to swallow. The sudden tightness of his mouth made Hissrad’s cock pulse; Krem felt it against his palate, throbbing, like his clit was.

“Shit, Krem, _shit_ ,” Hissrad groaned, hips stuttering. “Your mouth, you – do that again.” Krem obeyed and Hissrad’s cry was all his, all Krem’s doing, praise of high fucking order. Hissrad kept talking, like Krem had asked. It grounded him in the moment like nothing else; made him aware of this, and only this, and all of this. There wasn’t any hiding from unpleasant thoughts or fears, but equally, the rumble of Hissrad’s voice pushed them away and subsumed them in pleasure and rightness. “Use your hand on the rest, or my balls. C’mon, I want more of you, you’re so good, you’re so awesome – watch your teeth – ohh, yeah. Like that.”

When he felt ready, when he couldn’t take the slow exploration any longer, Krem reached up and placed a hand on the back of Hissrad’s thigh, careful not to make any move that could be accidentally taken as the tap to stop, but trying to indicate with little pulses of his fingers that he wanted –

“Faster?” Hissrad asked. “You want it faster, Krem, want me to fuck your mouth?”

Phrasing it like that, fuck… Krem whimpered assent. _Fuck me_ , he thought, _Maker, yes_.

“Put a hand on yourself,” Hissrad croaked, adjusting position above Krem. “I want you to rub yourself while we do this, want to hear how much you love it. Don’t you dare come, though, got me?”

Cock still filling his mouth, Krem could barely manage nod, but he was pretty sure the moan that ripped out of him at Hissrad’s words conveyed the message just as well. Leaving his right hand wrapped around the base of Hissrad’s cock, Krem moved his left to his own neglected cunt. Just the first press of his fingers would’ve made him arch, but Hissrad thrust his hips forward at the same time, and the taste and fullness and feeling made him spasm up off the ground, pushing his head further onto Hissrad’s cock.

“Can’t have that.” Hissrad’s words were a gasp, between moans. His hand found Krem’s forehead, pushing it down slightly as he continued to thrust gently. “I’m doing the – _hah, shit_ – the fucking here. Your job’s just to enjoy. Don’t even try to – _mnn_!” Krem swirled his tongue and nearly laughed at how Hissrad lost all his words. Andraste, it was Krem doing this to him, for him; Hissrad’s every sound of pleasure, every throb of his cock in Krem’s mouth, were his. It took seconds for Hissrad, hips still moving, to gather himself enough to pant, “Alright, guess you can do that.”

Krem did it again, and again, squeezing his fist around Hissrad’s cock every time Hissrad pushed forward into him. Hissrad’s balls really did rest on his chin, the soft weight as unexpectedly hot as anything else Krem had encountered thus far. Like the near-gag every time Hissrad reached the apex of a thrust; the feeling in his chest whenever he did as Hissrad said; even the ache in his jaw as time went on.

His own arousal built, too, a hum in his nerves and steady pressure behind his clit, but it was background, _so_ background in the face of what he was doing to Hissrad.

“You’re so good at this, Krem.” Krem couldn’t see Hissrad’s face, but he imagined it. Eyes squeezed tight shut, and mouth gaping, sweat and ecstasy shining on his cheeks. “So fucking good at taking my cock –” Krem moaned, and Hissrad echoed him. His cock leaked into Krem’s mouth. Krem swallowed salt and his own spit and Hissrad let out what could only be called a whimper, a strangled sob of a sound and a rush of desperate breath. “Krem, Krem, I’m close, I –”

He started to pull back and Krem whined and clutched at him unthinkingly. “I’m gonna come in your -   _Krem_ ,” Hissrad warned, shaking voice and body both as Krem pushed his tongue up against the head of his cock, “you keep doing that, I’m gonna come in your fucking mouth, you gorgeous –” 

He hadn’t put much thought into it until now, but suddenly, that was all Krem wanted. He wanted to take everything Hissrad could or would give him, every beautiful thing Krem could do for him. He wanted Hissrad to come inside him and he wanted to swallow it all. Krem dug his fingers into Hissrad’s ass, his own cunt abandoned but still throbbing, and moaned long and low. Urging Hissrad on.

Hissrad’s voice was a broken whisper. “Oh, _shit_.” His hips sped up again, fucking Krem’s face back into the blankets, the taste of salt stronger than ever. Hissrad kept going, words dissolving into babble. “Gonna come in you, Krem, you’re so good, Krem, fuck, take it –”

 _Yes, oh, Maker, yes._ Blasphemy echoed in his head as Krem listened. He swallowed again. Hissrad’s supporting arm folded, and he collapsed onto his elbow with a harsh cry as he started to come, hips still moving but all rhythm gone. Krem swallowed as best he could, eagerly and with absolutely no skill, choking when Hissrad fucked deeper and come hit the back of his throat, working Hissrad with his lips and his fist and revelling in the sounds of his pleasure.

  
“Fuck, Krem,” Hissrad groaned, the last of his orgasm leaving him. It was a struggle not to let his shaking muscles go limp and drop his weight on Krem. He stayed where he was for a moment, breathing hard, Krem’s lips loose and wet around his softening cock. “Fuck, that was so good.” Krem made a disappointed noise when Hissrad pulled up and off him, and Hissrad stroked a hand through his hair. “ _You_ were so good.”

Krem gave him a glazed smile, and wiped a dribble of come off his cheek with the back of his hand. “Woah,” he croaked, blinking, completely fuck-drunk. Hissrad kissed him quickly, unable to bear looking at Krem with so much fondness and doing nothing. He tasted his own come on Krem’s lips.

He waited until Krem’s gaze had cleared somewhat before asking. Taking control was one thing; taking advantage another. “Krem,” Hissrad murmured. He felt the dirt scrape his knees as he shuffled down, kissing Krem’s neck. Krem’s hips shifted towards him when Hissrad’s hand rested beside them, little desperate ruts that Hissrad ignored. With the taste of himself in his mouth, from Krem’s, there was only one thing Hissrad wanted. “Can I do that to you?”

Krem moaned, breath catching in an audibly hoarse throat, but didn’t answer, so Hissrad kept talking. Might as well, while he could. If Krem was agreeable, he’d soon have a much better use for his mouth than talking. “I want to taste you, Krem. Wanna put my mouth on you and your legs over my horns, wanna hear you moan when I suck you like you just sucked me. You’ve been so good to me, Krem, so patient. I want to give you something good too. Can I –?”

“Shut up,” Krem panted, one hand coming up to yank Hissrad’s horn down. His flush wasn’t visible in the darkness, but Hissrad could feel the heat. “Yes. Maker. Please. Now.”

Hissrad laughed, delighted. “Can do.” He moved down, kissing the planes of Krem’s abs. Krem trembled under him. He whimpered when Hissrad stopped at his hip, then bucked up when Hissrad sucked a mark there. Teasing over Krem’s hips and lower belly, Hissrad undid his leggings, and peeled them off. The dirty fabric clung to Krem’s sweating thighs.

The smell of Krem’s arousal filled the air, making Hissrad’s breath come quick and harsh, fogging his thoughts with salt and images of all he wanted to do. He got Krem’s pants and smalls off his good leg, but left them around his injured one; he didn’t have the dexterity or the time to take them off without hurting Krem, and this way Krem wouldn’t have to struggle them back on. Mindful not to force, Hissrad pushed Krem’s legs apart and knelt between them. A thought occurred, and he spat a couple of times, and wiped his mouth, to make sure there wasn’t any of his come left from kissing Krem.

In the flicker of Krem’s eyes as they caught the moonlight, Hissrad saw his impatience at even the few seconds pause. He had said _now_ , after all. He was proud of Krem for not asking. He was grateful beyond words that Krem trusted him so much. And Krem deserved to feel the rewards of Hissrad’s gratitude.

Hissrad bent low, and lifted Krem’s legs, sliding his horns under them. Best way to keep them safe and out the way. He looked down – and Krem’s cunt was right there, inches from his nose. “You smell so good, Krem,” Hissrad growled, pulled Krem the last few inches and finally, finally got his mouth on him.

“Ohhh, _Maker_!” Krem moaned. Hissrad found his head dragged sharply closer, Krem’s legs so much stronger than he’d expected, as Krem’s hips rose off the ground and one heel dug into Hissrad’s back. Hissrad slid a hand under his ass, holding him up so Krem wouldn’t strain himself. Pressed in too tight to move his face, barely able to breathe and nothing but Krem’s scent and now his _taste_ , Hissrad delved his tongue between Krem’s lips, exploring. He found the dip of Krem’s entrance and teased over it. He didn’t push inside, but Krem sure fucking liked it all the same. “Hissrad, oh, fuck, Hissrad!”

It was fully dark now, the sun long set. There was no way to see Krem with the clarity Hissrad wanted, but his shape sprawled beneath him was satisfying nonetheless. And what detail Hissrad could make out was beautiful. Krem’s head tipped sideways, presenting his neck in submission, the suggestion of teeth in the dent sunk in his lower lip; the strong curves of his shoulders and chest, flexing with every gasp, every pass of Hissrad’s tongue; the bracket of his legs either side of Hissrad’s face, and the dark hair covering Krem’s cunt.

Krem’s hips started to rock against Hissrad’s tongue, pushing down sharply whenever it traced over his hole, like he wanted Hissrad to fuck him with it. And fuck, he wanted to. But with Krem’s legs holding him so tight against him, and his mouth occupied drawing out every sound Krem was capable of making with that fucked-raw throat, he couldn’t ask. Besides, Hissrad knew better than to change the direction mid-sex. That was the whole point of prenegotiation.

Instead, when Krem ground down again, Hissrad shifted up, licking his slow way through Krem’s cunt until his lips found his clit. He stayed over the hood, batting it from side to side with his tongue almost lazily, teasing the nub beneath over and over until Krem was keening, his precome dripping down Hissrad’s chin. “Come on,” Krem gasped. “Faster, come on, _fuck_.”

His hand beneath Krem’s ass, Hissrad guided Krem’s hips to tilt back and forth, fucking his clit against Hissrad’s lips. Every tilt away, Hissrad followed it with his tongue under the hood; when Krem tilted back, Hissrad took what he could into his mouth and sucked hard. But still he did it slowly, slowly enough that Krem’s thighs were starting to relax their vice on his face, as sensation overwhelmed him.

Once Krem reached that point, Hissrad didn’t torture him much longer. He yanked Krem’s hips close and sealed his mouth over Krem, moving his tongue in tightening circles until it laved in hard, quick strokes over Krem’s clit. Krem’s moans increased in volume again, his hips twitching against Hissrad’s hold. “Hissrad, Hiss – I’m gonna, oh Maker, do that again, I – !” Hissrad complied, pressing the flat of his tongue inside Krem’s hood and sucking with his lips, and Krem’s twitches turned to bucks in Hissrad’s hands. He cried out, the sound harsh and beautiful, as he started to come.

Following that, Krem went completely silent, in throes of pleasure past the point of expression. His thighs spasmed more than clenched around Hissrad’s head, squeezing with all his gorgeous, glorious strength, as Hissrad kept sucking and toying with his clit and Krem’s come and Hissrad’s spit and both their sweat ran in trails down his neck. Krem’s orgasm went on for a long time, until he was writhing and clutching at nothing. Hissrad just kept going, pushing Krem through either another one or a heightening of the first, drawing a tiny, pathetic moan from him. The last sound Krem had in his wrung-out body.

Hissrad lowered him back to the ground as Krem’s body went lax, easing off his clit rather than stop cold. Krem flopped a hand up, reaching for Hissrad wordlessly, then jerked as an aftershock rolled through him. Hissrad unhooked Krem’s legs and scooped him into his arms, propping him up to spread a blanket on the dirt beneath their naked bodies (well, Krem was still wearing a shirt). He pulled the rest of the blankets over them, lay down, and filled his arms with Krem. Krem shook again, sharply, and stilled once more. “Shit, I put you through it, didn’t I?” Hissrad mumbled into Krem’s hair.

Krem said nothing, snuggling his face into Hissrad’s chest. Maybe he still wasn’t able to say anything. Hissrad wasn’t much better, honestly. That had been intense. Playing the part of Tamassran for Krem, caring for him so wholly – but not quite. He might’ve been in charge, but it had been about Hissrad too. All of it so new – none of the acts, sure, but everything besides them. He gathered Krem closer still, the smaller man sprawling over his chest, twisting their bare legs together. It was the best aftermath to anything, ever. It didn’t even feel like an aftermath. It was a continuation of the closeness, the press of their skin and their hearts together. Hissrad sighed, beyond happy.

A finger trailed through the sticky mess Hissrad had forgotten to wipe off his chin and neck. “Ew,” Krem slurred. “Sorry.”

“No need,” Hissrad whispered back, with a small laugh. He grabbed a handful of the blankets and scrubbed most of it off. “How was that?”

Silence. Hissrad got the impression Krem was still struggling for words. Then, “ _Holy shit_ ,” Krem said.

Hissrad laughed again, burying his grin in Krem’s hair. “Yeah. Me too.”

They were both quiet for a long time. Hissrad listened to the night-time sounds of the jungle, bugs chirruping, the wind mrring through the leaves, thinking about nothing at all. Krem’s breathing was slow and steady, torso curled on the rise and fall of Hissrad’s chest. He’d never spent this much time with someone following sex. It was as good as the sex itself. Maybe better.

Not that sex had lost appeal, by any means. Shit no. Hissrad tested his thoughts, the way he’d learned from young, searching out weakness. He imagined returning home. Visiting the Tamassrans like he always had. The idea didn’t rankle, or feel cold or pale; Hissrad would fuck with as much eagerness as ever, he was sure. But the desire no longer simply ended there. Sex like that was lacking something it had never lacked before, something Hissrad wanted just as much. Something that was right here, in his arms.

Hissrad thought Krem was asleep until he started to hum. A simple tune, audibly off-key even without knowing the original, but with perfect timing to it, like Krem was following along with words in his head. His voice was soft, so quiet it cracked in places. The tune carried on all the same. It sounded like a lullaby, like a melody Krem knew by heart and had known before he understood the words, soothing and old, soft and steady, with a thousand memories from a hundred generations wrapped up in it. It also sounded like Krem was a terrible singer.

“What song’s that?” Hissrad asked, when Krem’s voice had trailed off.

Krem started slightly. “Shit, sorry. Didn’t notice I was doing that out loud.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair and bumping Hissrad’s chin in the process. “’s just a song Mater used to sing us, when we were kids. She spent the last damn year trying to teach it to me, so I could sing it to mine.” Krem’s voice had turned sad and uncomfortable. Hissrad regretted asking, but Krem kept talking. “I was always shit at it. Used to make me sad, when I still planned on having any.”

Hissrad rubbed Krem’s back. “I don’t think you were shit at it.”

“Yeah?” Krem laughed, tilting his head up to look at Hissrad. “You’d be the first. Quintus told me –” he broke off, frowning again. “Never mind.” He started squirming.

“What’s up?”

“Putting my pants on,” Krem muttered. He wriggled around for another minute, then returned to Hissrad’s arms, a bit more curled up than he had been. Hissrad mourned the loss of skin contact. “Started thinking about some shit I shouldn’t have. Ruined the mood. Sorry.”

There was sadness in the air now. But they were still close, and still together. Hissrad only worried Krem was having more discomfort over his body, like he had last night; Hissrad had helped him then. “Don’t be sorry. Anything you need to talk about?”

“Nah.” Krem stretched lazily, pillowing his head on Hissrad’s shoulder. “Just shove me if I start caterwauling again, alright?”

“I liked it,” Hissrad said quietly. Sure, Krem was a shit singer, but there’d been emotion behind it. A song he’d been taught to sing to those he cared for. Surely some part of him had meant for Hissrad to hear it. Or… no, maybe he was just being stupid.

“Yeah, well, you’re weird,” Krem told him. Not being stupid, then. Krem wouldn’t have insulted him if he didn’t have emotions he was trying to cover up. “Maybe you Qunari don’t know what music is, and that’s why you like my butchering of a lullaby.”

“Hey, now.” Hissrad let Krem pretend to cover them; it wasn’t like he hadn’t been crystal clear anyway. The remark about music pissed him off a bit though. “I thought we’d got past the whole ‘my people are uncultured savages’ thing.”

He felt Krem’s frown against his chest. “That wasn’t what I – but yeah, sorry. Shouldn’t have said it.”

“Maybe not,” Hissrad agreed. “We’ve got music, and stories, same as you do, same as everyone does. I told you some, remember?” He might not, actually. Krem had been in a lot of pain.

“Yeah. I liked them.” Krem shifted, tense body uncurling a little again. “Not sure how that many dragons could fit on one island. Guess it’s a good thing all the stories involved killing ‘em.”

“Yeah, not worshipping them, like your lot,” Hissrad laughed.

“How out-of-date are those spy reports you get?” Krem’s voice was getting more alert again, shaking off the sleepiness of post-sex. Still soft, though. Not too loud in their little bubble. Teasing. “Is Hessarian still Archon? You might be a few years behind.”

“I’ll have to let my superiors know when I get back,” Hissrad intoned, pretending to be serious, like viddathari seemed to think all Qunari were. “Thank you for the information, you snarky little shit.” Krem started giggling.

“I’d be an awful informant,” Krem said, as the giggles faded. “You think anyone ever talked politics to a soporata, or a private? I don’t know shit.”

“Good thing you’re not one.” Hissrad stroked his thumb back and forth over Krem’s back. It was hard to spy on ‘Vint politics in general, really. There weren’t many involved who weren’t bas-Saarebas. And the parts of Tevinter life that didn’t involve magic were largely uninfluential – Hissrad didn’t actually know much more than the basics. He didn’t know anything at all about what Krem’s world might be. “What’s home like, though? On a personal level, not politics and shit. I haven’t really asked.”

“Awful.” Krem said it with a touch of a smirk, like he was expecting Hissrad to laugh at the summary, and move on.

“More awful than here?”

Hissrad had meant it as a bit of a joke, but Krem’s response was unexpectedly genuine. “Yeah.” He squeezed the arm around Hissrad’s chest in emphasis. “By miles.”

 _Then why go back?_ Hissrad wanted to ask, wanted to demand. But Krem hadn’t been meaning the army, where he’d chosen to be. “Can I still hear about it?” he asked instead. “I want to – I mean, while we’ve got the chance.”

Krem sighed, like he was giving in somehow. “Okay. I’m from a town called Pemus, it’s near Qarinus. Lived there my whole life. Mater, Pater, two little sisters, few cousins around the place.”

Hissrad had heard of it. Population of a couple thousand, plenty of trade for inland, due to the canal it bridged. Primary imports: fish, rice. Primary exports: cloth, leather, jewellery. His mind rattled off the facts automatically, telling him absolutely nothing about Krem. Similar to how Krem rattled off his list of family, actually. “Tell me about them?”

“My sisters? Claudia and Julia, their names are.” Krem’s voice filled with love and pride. “Claudia’s sixteen. Bit airheaded, dreamer, y’know? Good at figures, and nicking apples off carts, and scowling at people.” Hissrad could feel him smiling, and realised that he couldn’t have asked a better question. “Julia’s just small, turned eight while I was in training. Really loud, last I saw her. Wasn’t always – quiet thing, when she was younger. But since Pater… she was too young to understand, I think.”

“He died?”

Krem shook his head.  “He’s not around. He’s – a slave, now. Sold himself to keep us in rice.”

“Oh.” Hissrad didn’t know what that must mean to Krem. He’d never had a ‘father’. He imagined a mentor figure – his Tama, maybe – surrendering to the ‘Vints for his sake, and… _oh_. That’s what it would mean. An ache of loss, anger, helplessness. “You… you must miss him.”

“Yeah.” A sigh. “He doesn’t miss me, though.”

Hold on, now. “Hey, I’m sure he –”

“ _Me_ me, I mean. He – I never told him I was Cremisius, before he left. He’s probably still missing Lucia. I’ll never get the chance to tell him, now.” He laughed, very sadly. “Stupid bastard. Not like it helped. The money still ran out, in the end.”

Hissrad ignored Krem’s attempted dismissal. “I’m sorry he’ll never know.”

“Don’t be.” The words had a quiet bite behind them. “Maybe it was for the best. He never had to see me fail everyone, like Mater and the girls did. I never had to see the disappointed look on _his_ face.”

“Failed them?”

“She shouted at me, you know, when I came home wearing a binder, and told her I’d joined the army. Told me I was selfish. Mater, I mean.”

“Fuck her,” Hissrad said, and the easy dismissal made Krem smile again, for a moment. “It’s not selfish.” If he’d understood right, Krem could join the army and send money back to his family, as himself – an opportunity he’d have been denied, keeping up the charade of womanhood forced on him. That wasn’t failing them. That was holding to his duty, bravely so. But he’d heard enough of Krem’s pain to understand that, in Tevinter, what Krem was, was _wrong_.

“It _was_ , though. The money from the army – it keeps them fed, but. They had to sell the shop, start working for a seamster across town. If I ever got found out, they’d be on the streets inside a year.”

“And if you hadn’t joined, there’d have been no money at all.” Money, money, fucking money. All came back to money. There was no money under the Qun, and nobody starved. Hissrad still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the concept of bits of metal being more important than lives.

“Or there could’ve been more. Mater brought it up after Pater left.” Left. Such a soft word for the pain of what Krem’s father had been forced to do. Like he’d had a choice, like he could come back like Krem so wanted him to, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Hissrad could see it anyway. “We _knew_ the money wasn’t going to last forever. I didn’t want to, but – Mater was right, the solution was obvious. She organised the whole thing. His name was Quintus, he was richer than should’ve deigned to look at our family, my family could’ve moved in with his –”

“What?” Hissrad had no idea how to help, not even sure if he should regret drawing this out of Krem or not. It was hurting Krem, that much was obvious in every breath. But was it the pain of ripping out a barbed stinger, or of twisting a poisoned knife in deeper? Qun guide him, he didn’t know. Either way, he felt like he was missing a pretty key piece of the story. Krem had mentioned Quintus just before, too, and not in a happy, caring-for-his-family sort of tone. “What was the solution?”

Krem put his face in his hands, which was a lot less dramatic when you were lying down, but Hissrad understood anyway. He wrapped his arms around Krem, letting the man speak to his chest, tucked safe under Hissrad’s chin. “I was going to marry him,” Krem groaned. “We were _betrothed_. I was going to spend my life pretending to be his bloody wife, bearing his children, I couldn’t – Maker help me, I couldn’t do it.”

And in return for marrying Krem, the man and his family would’ve taken care of Krem’s. All Krem would’ve had to give up was _himself_. “Shit, Krem. That does sound awful.” Useless fucking words, but they were all Hissrad had. He held Krem closer. “I think you made the right decision, for what it’s worth.”

“So do I,” Krem said, at last with the fire in his breast that Hissrad loved so much. “It was about time I got a bit selfish. I just – worry. And then I hate myself for worrying, and then I feel like I’m just mad and lying to everyone, and then I feel like _shit_.”

And that whole spiral had started when Krem had realised he was humming a song related to all of that, and Hissrad had unintentionally made it worse by asking about home. But Hissrad was pretty sure, now, that it had been the first kind of pain. And Krem had let it out like he’d needed to. “Gotta be tough, being in the middle of all that,” Hissrad murmured. His feet were back on a clear path now. His training had answers, guides for care when someone had been hurt. “What did you do, at home? What helped you cope, what made you smile?”

“Sorry,” Krem said, and _no_ , that hadn’t been what Hissrad meant at all. “That was shit pillow-talk, wasn’t it?”

Silly guy. “You don’t need to be sorry,” Hissrad said fondly. “But you’re in a bad way. Now that you’ve talked it out, thinking about good shit will help.”

Krem trailed his fingers, light enough to tease, over the bite marks on Hissrad’s neck. “Sex is good.” Hissrad laughed, and though Krem did too, he followed it up with, “No, I – I mean that.” He sounded a little wondering. “What with – all of that. I thought that was the only sex I’d ever get to have. I gave up on anything else. Gave up on hoping for love. Thought no one’d want me like this, I have to hide in the army anyway, can’t even hire someone in case they sell me out.”

Hissrad had known Krem had no experience, but that explained… everything else, pretty much. The fear, and the desperate want. How he sought touch like he was starving for it. “I’m glad I could prove you wrong.”

“ _Maker_ , me too.” Krem sighed, and it was a happy noise again. “I don’t even know where I even got all this shit about love in my head. My parents weren’t in love. Claudia loved a tanner’s apprentice for a week, once. Fairy tale shit, honestly. Except… it’s not.” He snuggled his face against Hissrad.

Something in Hissrad’s chest squeezed. He kissed Krem quickly on the forehead, before he could think too hard about Krem’s words and ruin everything in a spiral of his own. “What about good things from home?” he encouraged, when he felt like long enough had passed that Krem wouldn’t take it as a rejection.

“I dunno. Was always crowded at home, especially after Julia was born. I wandered around on my own a lot, when I wasn’t working, or hawking at the market.” His voice brightened, some happy memory occurring. “Market sat right by a little river, one of them that fed the canal. Oh, there was a canal –”

“I know,” Hissrad said gently.

“Right, yeah. Well, it was more of a stream than a river, really. Maybe ten feet across. By the time it got past the tanners district to our market, it was filthy, obviously. But if you wandered up… took about an hour, squelching along the bank. _Ruined_ my shoes, the first time –”

Krem wasn’t a very good storyteller. Not the traditional kind, anyway. Everything he said was his own impressions, experiences, more than a full description, and that made it perfect for what Hissrad had hoped to hear.

“– nearly to where the nobles lived. The water was clear there. When I’d finished selling for the day, I’d walk up, sit under a tree and trail my feet in the water, and think. No one else was ever there. I was good and alone for once.”

Hissrad could imagine it clearly. The soft, thoughtful smile on Krem’s unguarded young face, the same sort he wore in the mornings before he’d woken up fully and pulled on his shell of bravado.

“I stopped going, after Pater was gone. Too busy. But after I was promised I had the time again, and I’d run up there when I was supposed to be working on my gown, with Mater yelling after me. Sometimes just jump right in the water, stick my head under, think about not coming up again. Always did, though. Couldn’t leave the girls. I sold that gown, though,” he said smugly. “After I’d spat on it.”

Hissrad chuckled with Krem. “What sorts of things did you think about?” He was still trying to draw Krem back to the good, from the hurt; also, though, he wanted to know. He wanted to know everything that there was about Krem. Kind and thoughtful and selfish and so, so brave.

Krem shrugged softly, the set of his shoulders embarrassed. “I mean, it was stupid, but. Sometimes the light and the ripples would make my reflection in the water look all… different. Bigger shoulders. No hips. Just for a second, I’d get to pretend I was someone else. I liked it.”

“It sounds like a good place.” Hissrad suddenly wished he’d get to see it, someday.

“It was. I always liked mirrors. Pater had a shaving mirror I used to look into… I nearly cried when we had to sell it.” Krem sounded wistful. “Once at dinner, I was, oh, ten? I said I wanted to grow into a big strong man. Pater laughed and messed my hair, and Mater told me I was gonna grow into a beautiful woman, and marry a handsome man.” He snickered slightly, but there was an undercurrent of discomfort to it.

“Well, look who had the right of it, after all.”

“Heh. Yeah. Thanks. After that, when I looked in the mirror, I’d tell myself I was imagining the man I was gonna marry. I wasn’t, though. I was still imagining me. Figured that out by the river, later.”

“I’ve never had to figure myself out before,” Hissrad said. Much as he felt the need to, these days. That Krem had managed it, in his circumstances, was fucking impressive. “I was always just sort of – told. How’d you do it?”

“A lot of crying,” Krem quipped. “Like, a lot. Really, though, I – I dunno. Once it started feeling wrong, it just got worse. Stuff I liked didn’t make me happy anymore, stuff I wanted didn’t matter. First I stopped wanting a future, and then I stopped feeling like I had one. I just felt so hopeless. So something had to change, or there was just no point in keeping going.”

Hissrad had been looking for answers. He hadn’t expected Krem to _have_ them. Krem’s role had been wrongly assigned, because Tevinter was fucked – of course that had messed him up! What he’d felt, and been through, shouldn’t have struck such a deep bell inside Hissrad, ringing true.

The Tamassrans made mistakes but rarely. Hissrad was Hissrad, not Aqun-athlok; he felt no call to another name.

… he didn’t feel called at all.

The future closed in around him with nothing but grey fog and death. He didn’t want this. But he didn’t want anything else, either. Except Krem. Krem was the first thing Hissrad had truly wanted in months, maybe longer. A bright thread of future, of hope for tomorrow. And soon even that would be gone again.

Something needed to change, Krem said. A change had brought life and colour to his life again, where once an endless plain of blinding nothingness stretched. But what was there to change for Hissrad?

“I couldn’t have imagined this, once,” Krem said, after the silence had gone on a long time. The words drew Hissrad slowly back to the present, at least for now. Pushed the empty future away. “Any of it. I’m so glad I got to have it. I’m so glad it was you.”

Still reeling in his own thoughts, Hissrad was surprised his voice didn’t echo when he spoke. “Yeah. Shit, Krem, you too.”

They talked a little more after that, though the hour was late by then. Krem told some rambling anecdote that involved Julia, a duckling that hid under her skirts, “and then it bit the burgher’s son on the hand…” and ended in a quiet snore. Hissrad kissed him on the head, smiling. He would’ve expected sleep to elude him, with all that was suddenly on his mind, but Krem’s warmth made it hard to be afraid. Still turning things over in his head, more calmly, Hissrad’s eyelids drooped too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> re: transphobia in tevinter, some canon sources say it's perfectly fine and legal, but Krem's experience obviously does not reflect that claim, e.g. being thought to have 'lied' on his army application. obviously there's a lot of classism that ties in to the differing treatment of him and mae, too
> 
> also yknow I'm always curious I mean I know a hell of a lot of people masturbate to fanfic but nobody ever TALKS about it and tbh that kind of attitude around masturbation is harmful and contributes to our culture of shame so. leave me reviews if you're comfy with it and got off to my porn I would consider that /high/ praise 
> 
> ld not have made it this far if i didn't have y'all who sent me love and everything, godd, aaa, it makes me soo happy
> 
> also did i mention i'm awful in my head because i am. so the next chapter might be a while. we'll see. sorry about that. hope the length of this one makes up for at least some of that.
> 
> EDIT: as of 2nd November 2016, I've made some (very) minor edits to this chapter, and chapter 3. if you can't be bothered finding and rereading etc, the gist of it is that I made it clearer that Krem has to return to the army, because they won't pay his family a stipend without his body to prove he's dead and not just a deserter


End file.
